Directed by Ilya Khrjanovsky. Cast: Marina Vovchenko, Irina Vovchenko, Svetlana Vovchenko, Sergei Shnurov, Yury Laguta, Konstantin Murzenko, Alexei Khvostenko, Anatoly Adoskin.
Originally banned in Russia, presents an apocalyptic journey through the dark heart of the new Russia. Two men and a woman happen to meet in a bar. Through their conversations, both the intriguing and banal details of their lives emerge. But is anyone really telling the truth? Topics are discussed from the meat market, to the president's drinking habit and even the Soviet cloning project. Following their late-night lies, they go their separate ways through a landscape filled with decaying meat, wild dogs, ravenous crones, cloned piglets, and modern industrial horrors. 125 min. DVD X145

Directed by Fyodor Bondarchuk. Cast: Artur Smolyaninov, Alexei Chadov, Konstantin Kryukov, Ivan Kokorin, Ivan Kokorin, Artyom Mikhalkov, Mikhail Porechenkov ... [et al.].
Based on a true story of the 9th company during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Young Soviet Army recruits are sent from boot camp directly into the war in Afghanistan. Real war is not like boot camp at all. This inexperienced company is sent to defend a difficult position, a task which may be beyond their capabilities. 140 min. DVD X5015

Directed by Alexander Dovzhenko. Set in a mythical Far Eastern Soviet city and air base, the film reflects Soviet anxieties about Japanese aggression. In the story Glushak, a Siberian hunter, kills his long-time friend who is exposed as a traitor to the U.S.S.R. Completion of this film was jeopardized by bureaucrats until Dovzhenko met with Stalin who insured the film's completion. In Russian with English subtitles. 89 min. 999:1089

Directed by Aleksandr Sokurov. Cast: Galina Vishnevskaia, Vasilii Shevtsov, Raisa Gichaeva, Evgenii Tkachuk, Andrei Bogdanov, Rustam Shakhgireev, Aleksei Neimyshev. In a desolate, sun-sorched corner of the world, an elderly woman has come to see her beloved grandson. He is a young officer stationed at a remote military outpost. With the enemy just beyond the compound, she wanders the barracks, observing the routines of military life, before making a sudden trip into the outlying countryside. Special features: Press conference with director Aleksandr Sokurov, actress Galina Vishnevskaia and composer/producer Andrei( Sigle (60 min.); "Patience labour:" a short film by Aleksandr Sokurov (10 min.); theatrical trailer; essay by film critic David Shengold. 92 min. DVD X2688

Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov. Cast: Anna Mikhalkova, Nikita Mikhalkov, Nadezhda Mikhalkova.
Juxtaposing macrocosm and microcosm, the film sets the collapse of the Soviet Union against the growth of Mikhalkov's daughter Anna over the course of 13 years, beginning in 1980. Every year, starting at age six, Anna is subjected to an interview centering on the same five questions. Her personal evolution is interwoven with archival footage and propaganda films tracing the death throes of the Soviet Empire from the last years of the Brezhnev regime through Gorbachev's perestroika reforms to the first steps toward democracy under Boris Yeltsin. 100 min. Video/C 6645

Director, Aleksandr Zarkhi. Cast: Tatyana Samojlova, Nikolai Gritsenko, Vasili Lanovoy, Yuri Yakovlev. Anna Karenina is the young wife of an aging Russian aristocrat. She has an affair with the handsome Count Vronsky. By following her desires Anna complicates her life, falls into a depression and ends it in a suicide under a train. Based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy. 145 min. DVD 6542

Director, Otar Iosseliani. Cast: T. Chanturia, Gia Chiraqadze, A. Chikvaidze, V. Maisuradze, A. Jorbenadze. A critique of materialism, the film is about a young couple who live in a rundown empty apartment. Their love is so strong that it makes the water flow and the electricity work, but when they start purchasing furniture and knickknacks, they fight and grow apart. 30 min. DVD 4448

Directed by Yuri Mamin. The Pushkin Club is a group of reactionaries who affect 19th century dress and want to remove from Russia "the scum of Western influence." In this original, biting satire a warning about the rise of militarism and fascism in Russia is sounded. 110 min. vhs 999:2255

Directed by Grigori Chukhraj. A young Russian soldier is given a six-day leave as a reward for an act of bravery in battle. As he journeys home he encounters the devastation of his war-torn country, witnesses glimmers of hope among the people, and falls in love. With its poetic visual imagery this unconventional meditation on the effects of war is a milestone in Russian cinema. 88 min. DVD 1163

British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards - Best Film from any Source

San Francisco International Film Festival - Best Film; Best Director

The Barber of Siberia (Sibirskiy tsiryulnik) (1998)

Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov. Cast: Julia Ormond, Oleg Menshikov, Aleksei Petrenko, Richard Kharris, Nikita Mikhalkov. A foreign entrepreneur ventures to Russia in 1885 with dreams of selling a new experimental steam-driven harvester in the wilds of Siberia. Julia Ormond portrays his assistant, who falls in love with a young Russian officer, and spends the next 10 years perfecting the harvester and pursuing her love, who has been exiled to Siberia. 180 min. DVD 8988

Directed by Sergei Eisenstein. A tale in which peasant settlements were forcibly reorganized into state affliated collective farms. Video Disc 180

Brilliantovaya ruka (Diamond Hand) (1968)

Directed by Leonid Gaidai. Semyon Gorbunkov goes on a cruise. In Istanbul, he slips and breaks his arm. What he didn't know is that this was a signal for a gang of smugglers (a real smuggler - Gena - was also on board the same ship). So his arm gets bandaged with gold and diamonds. After he returns home, the gangsters are trying to get their stuff back, while the police try to catch them using Gorbunkov and his arm. 100 min. DVD4456

Directed by Aleksei Balabanov. After being discharged from the Army, Danila runs afoul of the authorities. He goes to live with his brother, a gangster, in the free-wheeling city of Leningrad and is soon immersed in the city's organized crime scene. 96 min. DVD 4218

Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov. In the Soviet Union of 1936 revolutionary hero, Colonel Kotov, is spending an idyllic summer in his dacha with his wife and their 6 year old daughter. They are surprised by the arrival of the charming Mitia, who exploits his status as an old family friend to carry out a dark mission. Kotov's confidence in himself and his country are at first unshakable; he is unable to comprehend that his peaceful family idyll is about to be destroyed by the brutality of the Stalinist regime. 134 min. DVD 5513

The Cameraman's Revenge and Other Fantastic Tales: the Amazing Puppet Animation of Ladislaw Starewicz (1912-1958)

Six animated works produced by Starewicz in Moscow and Paris between the years 1912 and 1958. As the world's first great puppet and stop-motion model animator, Starewicz was best known for his insect stories. Starewicz's grasshoppers, dogs, frogs, dolls, and other creatures portray heroics and follies with an exuberance of humor and invention. Contents: The Cameraman's Revenge (1912, 13 min.) -- The Insects' Christmas (1913, 7 min.) -- Frogland: The Frogs Who Wanted a King (1922, 9 min.) -- Voice of the Nightingale (1923, 13 min.) -- The Mascot (1933, 26 min.) -- Winter Carousel (1958, 12 min.). 80 min. total DVD 1934

Chapayev (1934)

Directed by Sergei Vassiliev and Georgy Vassiliev. After the revolution, an illiterate Russian who served in the Czar's army forms his own force to fight the White Russians. A stirring account of a beloved hero of the Russian Revolution and Stalin's favorite propaganda film. Based on documents by D.A. Furmanov and A.N. Furmanova. 94 min. DVD X1024 [preservation copy]; vhs 999:1604

Director, Aleksey Balabanov. Cast: Alexey Serebryakov, Leonid Gromov, Yuri Stepanov, Agniya Kuznestsova, Alexey Poluyan.
In 1984, in provincial Russia, the daughter of a communist party regional secretary is kidnapped and abused by a police officer. Meanwhile there is a brutal murder nearby, and military corpses return from Afghanistan. Based on actual events, an unflinching portrait of the decline of the Soviet era. 120 min. DVD 8308

Director, Mark Donski. Cast: Alexei Lyarsky, Varvara Massalitinova, Mikhail Troyansky, J. Alexeyeva.
The Childhood of Maxim Gorky (Detstvo Gorkovo) was the first of Russian director Mark Donski's trilogy based upon Gorky's memoirs. Alexei Lyarsky plays the young Maxim, who grows up under the czarist regime with his grandparents as guardians. Continually demeaned by his martinet grandfather, Maxim is drawn to his warm-hearted grandmother, who instills in him the willingness to pursue his writing muse. Gorky's (and Donski's) deep abiding love for Russia is conveyed through the film's remarkably romanticist landscape shots along the Volga River. Includes the silent short "Moscow clad in snow" (5 min.), featuring documentary scenes of Moscow from 1909, filmed for Pathe Frères. 86 min. DVD 7620

Director, Grigori Alexandrov. Russian film producer Grigori Alexandrov's attempt at importing American musical comedy into Soviet film. An American circus star is on tour in Moscow with her German manager. There she falls in love with a Soviet engineer, but her manager blackmails her with her dark spot in her life, she has a black baby. 86 min. vhs 999:3252

Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov. In this cross-cultural comedy, Gombo, a Mongolian shepherd, and Sergei, a Russian road builder, strike up a friendship and go on the road together, headed for the city. Intending to buy a TV and condoms because he already has 2 children (the limit set by the Chinese governement), Gombo is on his way to becoming a modern man. But present-day ways may not be so alluring after all. 109 min. vhs 999:2260

Director, Alexander Proshkin. Among the many criminals freed from the Soviet gulags in 1953 are two political prisoners, the middle-aged Kopalych and the young Luzga. While waiting for the arrival of a boat in a small village, they help defend its inhabitants from the hardened criminals convicted for grave offences and also recently released. 96 min. DVD 2353

Directed by Sergei Paradzhanov. Cast: Sofiko Chiaureli, M. Aleksanian, V. Galstian. Stylized biographical drama of the life of noted eighteenth century Armenian poet and troubadour Sayat Nova. Based on his writings, the film, which depicts the poet's life in eight sections from childhood to death, is rich with symbols of sacred and secular Armenian life. 88 min. DVD 6262

Directed by Elem Klimov. Cast: A. Kravchenko, O. Mironova, L. Lautsyavichyus, V. Bagdonas, Yu. Lumiste, V. Lorench, K. Rabechkii, E. Tilicheev. Young Florya willing joins the Partisans fighting the Nazis in Byelorussia, USSR during World War II. Separated from his comrades during a paratroop attack and struck deaf by German artillery, Florya, in the company of peasant girl, Glascha, wanders through the battle-scorched Russian forests and man-made slaughter. He witnesses an SS unit's spontaneous, self-congratulatory applause at their own butchery. 145 min. DVD 1164

Directed by Aleksandr Sokurov. Documentary-like program about the lonely and isolated lives of the captain and sailors stationed aboard a Russian battleship in the Barents Sea. The film reveals the daily duties associated with the ship, but it is really about solitude and isolation. Voice-over narration by the commander and other sailors provide the "confession" of the title. Originally broadcast in 1998 in Russia as a five part television series. 210 min. DVD X2684

Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov. Cast: Tatiana Samohilova, Aleksei Batalov, Vasilii Merkurev, A. Shvorin, S. Kharitonova. Boris' and Veronica's marriage plans are interrupted when Boris enlists in the Soviet army after the German invasion of Russia. Veronica eventually succumbs to the seduction of Boris' cousin, Mark, but subsequently redeems herself by nursing the wounded amidst the terrible suffering of the Russian civilian population during World War II. 91 min. DVD 1162; vhs 999:1028

Director: Akira Kurosawa. An enthralling tale of an eccentric Mongolian frontiersman who is taken on as a guide by a Soviet surveying crew. While the soldiers at first perceive Dersu as a naive and comical relic of an uncivilized age, he quickly proves himself otherwise with displays of ingenuity and bravery unmatched by any member of the inexperienced mapping team, on more than one occasion becoming their unlikely savior. Originally made as a motion picture in 1974 as a joint Soviet and Japanese production. 140 min. DVD 408; VHS 999:2040

Directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin. A German shipyard laborer joins a worker's strike in defiance of a corrupt union and regardless of the company's violent reprisals. Starved, beaten and discouraged, he is sent in an envoy to the USSR and is rejuvenated by the spirit of cooperation and optimism of the idyllic workers' state. 100 min. DVD 8554; vhs 999:1690

This film shows the director Andre Tarkovskij in action as he makes his own picture 'The Sacrifice'. The program explains the motivation behind the film and contains illumination of Tarkovskij's working methods and style and how he overcame various technical problems during the film-making. Includes interviews with members of the cast and crew. Originally produced as motion picture in 1988. 107 min. Video/C 7170

Divided We Fall (Musime si pomahat) (2000)

Director, Jan Hrebejk. Cast: Boleslav Polívka, Csongor Kassai, Jaroslav Dusek, Anna Sisková, Jirí Pecha, Martin Huba, Simona Staaová, Vladimír Marek, Jirí Kodet. During World War II and the Nazi occupation of Czechoslavakia, a couple, Josef and Marie, decide to hide a young Jewish neighbor in their small apartment. They keep getting a visit from their neighbor, Horst, who is a German sympathizer who has his eye on Marie. When she rejects his advances he seeks revenge by trying to move a Nazi clerk into their home, forcing the couple to tell a lie that will change their lives forever. 122 min. DVD 1227

Directed by Alexander Sokurov. One of a series of "Japanese" videos by Alexander Sokurov. Dolce is a form of documentary about a well-known Japanese writer, Toshio Shimao, who died in 1986, his widow and their daughter. It serves as a framework to underline the film's deep insight into the biographical narration. There is but one way to touch that world, to feel its exquisite flavour and its perverse pain - to do it as in a lyrical music piece, tenderly, dolce. 61 min. DVD X2683

Directed by Nadezhda Kosheverova. Cast: Vladimir Etouch, Svetlana Nemolyaeva, Vera Novikova. Based on the fairy tale by Charles Perrault, tells the story of the arrival of a wicked fairy at the christening of Therese, daughter of King Gaston IX. But the wicked fairy's curse is circumvented by a good fairy who puts a donkey's hide on the princess, so she will not be recognised and also gives the princess a magic ring capable of making its wearer change his or her appearance. 85 min. DVD 2351

Directed by Aleksandr Sokurov. In Élégie de la traversée, Sokurov crosses vast terrain, sails the high seas, and stumbles through congested cities to arrive at the doors of the empty Boijmans Museum in Rotterdam. Only then does he discover that the goal of his voyage was to bask in the power of St. Mary's Square, a beautiful landscape by Peter Saenredam.
48 min. DVD X2633

Directed by Aleksandr Sokurov. Contents: Maria: Made in memory of Russian peasant Maria Semionovna Voinova, a woman who grew flax, and after her death, her secrets and methods of working the fields were lost.
The Last Day of a Rainy Summer: Filmed on a kolkhoz, a collective farm. After several years of low crop yields, the kolkhoz was in poor condition.
48 min. DVD X2633

Director, Otar Iosseliani. Cast: Ramaz Giorgobiani, Gogi Kharabadze , Marina Kartsivadze, Aleqsandre Omiadze, Baadur Tsuladze, Tengiz Daushvili. A young idealist takes a job at a local state run winery only to discover and become disillusioned by the corruption of the Soviet state. 91 min. DVD 4448

Director: Aleksandr Sokurov. Cast: Andrey Shchetinin, Aleksey Neymyshev, Alexander Razbash, Fedor Lavrov, Mavina Zasukhina.
A father and son live together in a rooftop apartment. They have lived alone for years in their own private world. Sometimes they seem like brothers, at other times they appear to be like lovers. Following in his father's footsteps, the son, Alexei attends military school. He likes sports and has problems with his girlfriend. She is jealous of Alexei's relationship with his father. Alexei's father knows he should maybe accept a better job in another city, maybe search for a new wife. But who will ease the pain of Alexei's nightmares? 83 min. DVD X599

Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov. Cast: Liudmila Gurchenko, Stanislav Liubshin, Valentina Telichkina, Larisa Kuznetsova, Igor Nefedov. Set in the 1950s, Soviet life is examined through the lives of the residents in a communal apartment and in particular a couple separated by the war. Twenty years later fate has brought Alexander and Tamara back together. Can they find the courage to admit that their feelings are just as strong as ever? Based on the play by Alexander Volodin. 98 min. DVD X4652

Directed by Aleksandr Rou. Cast: Raissa Ryazanova, Volodya Belov, Ira Chigrinova, Lena Chigrinova, Georgy Millyar, Alexei Smirnov, Lev Potyomkin. Yuri Kharchenko, Anatoly Gorbachev. Based on an old Russian fairy tale, tells the story of a woman searching for children taken by the old witch Baba Yaga. Along her way she comes to the aid of the noble deer called Golden Horns. In gratitude for her aid, Golden Horns gives the woman a magic ring and information which leads her to an encounter with Baba Yaga. 74 min. DVD 2328

Directed by Igor Savchenko. Cast: Lev Sverdlin, Stepan Shkurat, Mikhail Troyanovsky, Piotr Masokha, Leonid Kmit. A drama about the welcome, by some Ukrainians, of the German army into Ukraine in 1918, and resistance of the invaders by other Ukrainians. 110 min. 999:3671

Directed by Grigory Kozintsev. Cast: Innokenti Smoktunovsky, Mikhail Nazvanov, Elsa Radzin, Yuri Tolubeyev, Anastasia Vertinskaya. A Russian production of Hamlet with music by Dmitri Shostakovich. In this Shakespearean tragedy Hamlet, a prince of medieval-era Denmark, senses treachery behind his royal father's death. Based on the play: Hamlet by William Shakespeare as translated into Russian by Boris Pasternak. 140 min. DVD 6529

Directed by Aleksandr Sokurov. The director meditates on the work of French romantic artist Hubert Robert, whose paintings of lost ruins evoke the same nostalgia and lyricism of Sokurov's own moody films. 26 min.
DVD X2633

Directed by Alexander Sokurov. One of a series of "Japanese" videos by Alexander Sokurov. A humble life is an unhurried and detailed report from an old solitary house, lost in the mountains, in the village of Aska (Nara Prefecture), Japan, where an old woman, Umeno Matsuyoshi, lives alone. 76 min. DVD X2683

A Hundred Days Before the Command (Sto dney do prikaza) (Soviet Union, 1990)

Director, Hussein Erkenov. Cast: Vladimir Zamanskii, Armen Dzhigarkhanian, Oleg Vasilkov, Roman Grekov.
Five young Red Army recruits struggle for survival against the violence that surrounds them on a daily basis. Based on a short story by Yuri Polyakov. 70 min. DVD X3783

Director Mikhail Kalatozov. A Cuban propaganda film first exhibited outside of Cuba and the Soviet Union in 1992. The film, an anthology of pre-revolutionary folk tales, is divided into four parts, each presenting fictional events which led to the success of the revolution under Fidel Castro. In the first film a poor, Havana girl loses herself in the decadent night life of the city and becomes a prostitute serving American tourists; in the second, an old farmer who is about to be evicted from his land by the United Fruit Company sets fire to his house and cane fields and collapses in despair; in the third, university students demonstrate and plot against the government, and are martyred; and in the last an ignorant campesino, driven from his home by Batista's forces, sees the light and follows it to a rebel camp where Fidel's troops welcome him. In Spanish, dubbed in Russian, with English subtitles. 141 min. DVD 5782; vhs 999:1212

Directed by Eldar Ryazanov. A young doctor, with a group of his friends, visits a public bath and gets drunk on New Years Eve. Instead of his friend returning to Moscow, the doctor does, and returns to his home to find its not his home, although the address is the same and his key opens the lock. Here in this stange house he falls in love with a woman. 185 min. DVD 4457

Writer and director, Sergei Eisenstein. Part 1 opens with the coronation of Ivan, Grand Duke of Moscow, depicting his goal to unify all Russian lands, his successive battles, ending with his self-imposed exile to await the call of the Russian people. Part 2 begins with his return to Moscow to find that his dream of reuniting all of Russia is all but impossible. He discovers an assassination plot and devises a scheme to turn the tables on the plotters. Director Eisenstein died before completing part 3. (Ivan the Terrible was originally released in Russia as motion picture in 1944; Ivan the Terrible. Part two was originally produced in 1946 and released in 1958.) Special features (Criterion version): (Part 1) Multimedia essay on the history of Ivan the Terrible by Joan Neuberger ; deleted scenes ; drawings and production stills. (Part 2) Multimedia essay on Eisenstein's visual vocabulary by Yuri Tsivian. 181 min. DVD 6654 (Criterion); DVD 55; vhs 999:345

Directed by Leonid Gaiday. Cast: Aleksandr Demyanenko, Yuri Yakovlev, Leonid Kuravlev, Saveli Kramarov, Natalya Krachkovskaya. Shurik has built a time machine in his apartment. When it accidentally sends the apartment manager and a thief to the tsar's palace during Ivan the Terrible's reign, and the Tsar finds himself in modern Moscow, things get interesting. 93 min. DVD 4658

Director, Aleksandr Askoldov. Cast: Nonna Mordyukova, Rolan Bykov, Raisa Nedashkovskaya, Lyudmila Volynskaya, Vasili Shukshin.
A dedicated soldier of the newly-formed Soviet army becomes pregnant has to make a choice between becoming a mother and the needs of the Revolution. Set against the Russian Civil War, Klavdia Vavilova has a reputation in her unit as a selfless fighter, but her unexpected situation not only forces her to temporarily leave her comrades, her commanders have placed her in the household of a family of Ukrainian Jews. As the humanity and suffering of those living outside the party apparatus becomes apparent, Vavilova's emotions grow increasingly conflicted. Her tenuous situation turns dire when her unit returns for her and she is confronted with a final chance to show her loyalty to the cause. Based on the short story : In the town of Berdichev by Vasili Grossman.
Special features Disc 2: Interview with director Aleksandr Askoldov (40 min.); video interview excerpt of actress Nonna Mordyukova discussing the director (5 min.); video excerpt of actress Raisa Nedashkovskaya discussing the production (4 min.); video interview with actor Rolan Bykov (17 min.); filmography of Askoldov; "Case history of comrade A. Ya. Askoldov" denunciaton of the director by the USSR Cinematography Committee; "To the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee" letter from supporters of the director; "Documents" featuring extracts of official denunciations and dismissal of Askoldov by party officials (1 min.); interview with actress Raisa Nedashkovskaya (15 min.); "Press" readings of critic acclaim and review excerpts (3 min.); awards; "Recognition" posters and stills from film festivals (5 min.).
105 min. DVD X3541

Directed by Alexander Rogozhkin. Cast: Anny-Kristiina Juuso, Ville Haapasalo, Viktor Bychkov, Aleksei Kashnikov. In a land torn apart by war, two men on opposite sides are about to find out they have one thing in common. Wounded and emotionally tortured, they are taken in by Anni, a young war widow. None of them understands the others' languages, but it doesn't seem to matter. After a hard day at work on Anni's farm, who needs words? 103 min. DVD 4455

Directed by Iosif Kheifits. Cast: Iya Savvina, Aleksei Batalov, Nina Alisova, Pantelejmon Krymov, Yuri Medvedev, and Vladimir Erenberg.
A film adaptation of Chekov's story about a bored, middle-aged, married banker from Moscow who meets a young married woman while on vacation in Yalta at the beginning of the century. They drift into an affair that turns into true love, yet the conventions of society and the couple's need to feel respectable force them to return to their old lives. 89 min. DVD X6758

Directed by Dover Kosashvili. Cast: Lior Louie Ashkenazi, Ronit Elkabetz, Moni Moshonov, Lili Kosashvili, Ayo Steinovits Laor, Rozina Cambos, Simon Chen, Sopir Kugman, Dina Doron. Unmarried at 31, Zaza has become an embarassment to his family. With one potential bride after another trotted out in front of him, he somehow manages to never tie the knot. Curious, his family investigates and discovers his secret relationship to a divorcee. Upset, the entire family decide to intervene. 100 min. DVD 4207

Directed by Vasily Pichul. Cast: Natalya Negoda, Andrei Sokolov, Yuri Nazarov, Lyudmila Zajtseva, Aleksandr Negreba, Aleksandra Tabakova. The title character of the Russian Little Vera is a headstrong teenage girl, played by Natalya Negoda. To the dismay of her parents, Vera lives only for the moment, making no provision for her future. She'd rather hang out at local cafes in garish makeup and provocative clothing. A chance meeting with handsome student Sergei (Andrei Sokolov) develops into a sexual relationship. Her parents send out Vera's brother (Alexander Alexeyev-Negreba) to talk some sense into her. This proves doubly dicey when it turns out that the brother is an old acquaintance of the rebellious Sergei. Vera lies that she's gotten pregnant by Sergei, so he obligingly marries her and moves in with her family, which serves only to make matters worse. Vera's drunken father (Yuri Nazarov) ends up stabbing his son-in-law. Persuaded to lie about the incident to keep her father out of jail, Vera takes her family's side. A last-minute tragedy is barely averted, but we get the distinct feeling that Vera's problems with her family in particular and her life in general are far from over [synopsis from All-Movie Guide] 110 min. DVD 8369; vhs 999:379

Director, Pavel Lounguine. Cast: Oleg Borisov, Andrei Goutine, Natalie Egorova. Andrei is the leader of a gang of right-wing skinheads in post-Communist Russia who are determined to "clean up" Russia by beating up Jews, foreigners, and anyone else they disapprove of. When, to his shock, the anti-Semitic Andrei learns that his father is actually a celebrated Jewish composer, he sets off on a frantic search through Moscow to find him. 105 min. vhs 999:2254

Director, Alexander Petrov. In this animated short, a mermaid returns from the dead to avenge her life, but finds the one who betrayed her has long since retired from the world to atone for his sins. Two years in the making and nominated for an Academy Award this carefully crafted film was created through the technique of oil painting on glass. In Russian without English subtitles. 10 min. 999:3267

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Cast: Oleg Yankovsky, Margarita Terekhova, Ignat Daniltsev. Presents images of Tarkovsky's childhood mixed with fragments of his adult life - a child's wartime exile, a mother's experience with political terror, the breakup of a marriage, life in a country home - all intermingled with slow-motion dream sequences and poetic chunks of stark newsreels. 106 min. DVD 2298

Director: Aleksandr Sokurov. Cast: Leonid Mosgowoi, Elena Rufanowa, Leonid Sokol, Yelena Spiridonova, Vladimir Bogdanov, Anatoli Shvedersky.
In an ominous fortress perched high above the clouds, everything seems in order for a reposing 24 hours. It is the spring of 1942 in Germany and Eva Braun is the only voice that dares contradict the Fuhrer. Eva is caught up in the complexities of a man incapable of human intimacy, making her as volcanic as her beloved Hitler. 72 min. DVD X598

Directed by Sergei Bodrov. Cast: Asano Tadanobu, Sun Hong Ley, Khulan Chuluun, Odnyam Odsuren,
Delves into the dramatic and harrowing early years of Genghis Khan (1162-1227), the ruler who was born as Temudgin in 1162. Follows Temudgin from his perilous childhood to the battle that sealed his destiny. Portrays the future conqueror not as an evil brute, but as an inspiring, fearless and visionary leader. 126 min. DVD X434

Director, Vladimir Menshov. Cast: Vera Alentova (Katerina), Irina Muravyova (Liudmila), Raisa Ryazanova (Antonina), Alexei Batalov (Gosha). A romantic comedy about three young, working-class, country girls, who go to Moscow in 1958 to seek work, men, and success. The film closes by skipping forward twenty five years to see just how many of their dreams came true. 150 min. DVD 835; VHS 999:1553

Menashe, Louis. "Moscow Believes in Tears: The Problems (and Promise?) of Russian Cinema in the Transition Period."
Cineaste: America's Leading Magazine on the Art and Politics of the Cinema, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 10-17, Summer 2001
UC users only

Mother and Son (Mat i syn) (1997)

Director: Aleksandr Sokurov. Cast: Aleksei Ananishnov, Gudrun Geyer.
"A miracle of film lyricism with sound and light... produced by using stained glass, mirror effects and special lenses." Within a small cabin cloistered in a netherworld as idyllic as a dream, an ailing mother and her grown son get ready for her passing. As the dutiful son comforts his dying mother in her final hours, heartbreak is inevitable. 72 min. DVD X598

Ross, Bruce. "Nostalgia and the Child 'Topoi': Metaphors of Disruption and Transcendence in the Work of Joseph Brodsky, Marc Chagall and Andrei Tarkovsky." Analecta Husserliana, vol. 28, pp. 307-323, 1990

Thompson, John O. "Reflexions on Dead Children in the Cinema and Why There Are Not More of Them." In: Representations of childhood death / edited by Gillian Avery and Kimberley Reynolds.
New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000. (Main Stack HQ1073.R46 2000)

Directed by Alexander Alexeieff. Fantastic pictures animated on the pinboard capture without words the scene and spirit of Nicolai Gogol's celebrated short story set in 19th century Russia. This best known of the Alexeieff & Parker films, critics have written, is "full of art and poetry" and "should be seen more than once for a full awareness of its artistry." 11 min. (With Alexeieff at the Pinboard, & Night on Bald Mountain). 999:3047

Directed by Andrey Tarkovsky. Cast: Oleg Jankovsky, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano. A homesick Russian poet, Gorchakov, researching in Italy with the aid of a beautiful interpreter, Eugenia, arrives at a Tuscan spa and while there encounters the local mystic, who sets him on a challenging task. 120 min. DVD 538; VHS 999:2851

Cannes Film Festival - Best Director; FIPRESCI Prize; Prize of the Ecumenical Jury

Oblomov(1979)

Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov. Cast: Oleg Tabakov, Elena Solovei. A moving adaptation of Ivan Goncharov's great 19th century tragi-comedy about a gentle aristocrat who would rather sleep than compete in a modern world of expanding industrialization. Based on the novel by Ivan Goncharov.142 min. DVD X4651

Directed by Pyotr Lutsik. Cast: Yuri Dubrovin, Nikolai Olyalin, Aleksei Pushkin, Aleksei Vanin. A group of Russian men fight injustice as they try to discover who stole their land. Their hunt for the offenders takes them from the gentle countryside to the halls of power. 95 min. DVD 6565

Directed by Pavel Lounguine. Cast: Vladimir Mashkov, Mariya Mironova, Andrei Krasko, Levani Uchaneishvili, Mikhail Vasserbaum, Sergei Yushkevich, Aleksandr Samojlenko, Natalya Kolyakanova. During the Gorbachev years, Platon Makovski and his four buddies are university students who jump on the private capitalism movement. Fast-forward 20 years, Platon finds himself the richest man in Russia, having sacrificed his friends to get to the top. But with this cynical rise, comes a brutal fall. 128 min. DVD 4082

Widely regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of the 20th century, this is a homage to post-War Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky by his friend and colleague renowned French filmmaker Chris Marker. Marker draws parallels between Tarkovsky's life and films, offering an original insight into the usually reclusive director. Incorporating extensive film clips, journal entries, personal musings, and behind-the-scenes footage of Tarkovsky obsessively commanding his entire crew and of candid moments with his friends and family, this is a personal and loving portrait of the monumental filmmaker. 55 min. Video/C 7646

Director, Aleksandr Sokurov. The first among the "Japanese" videos by Alexander Sokurov, where real people are represented in their normal conditions and surroundings. They are simple people, but not ordinary. Their originality lies in the special nature of their souls, where poetry and mythology mean more than the symbols of contemporary reality. 43 min. DVD X2683

Director, Otar Iosseliani. Cast: Nestor Pipia, Rezo Charkhalashvili, Marina Kartsivadze, Baia Macaberidze, Vaxtang Eremashvili. The film tells the story of the well-trained musicians from a string quartet who spend the summer rehearsing in a small village in Georgia. Though they rehearse and bicker among themselves, the four become increasingly involved in local controversies and in the lives of the villagers. 91 min. DVD 4448

Directed by Vladimir Petrov. Chronicles the later years of Tsar Peter's life, during which he almost singlehandedly, forged a medieval Russia into a modern Western nation. Filmed over a three year period, with a cast of more than 5000, the film utilizes montage techniques as created by Eisenstein, Pudovkin, and Dovzhenko to present this crucial period of Russian history. 203 min. 999:3383

Directed by Sergei Bodrov. Cast: Oleg Menshikov, Sergei Bodrov, Jr., Djemal Sikharulidze, Susanna Mekhralieva, Alexander Bureev, Valentina Fedotova, Alexei Jarkov. A Russian army patrol is ambushed by Caucasian rebels and two survivors are taken prisoner by a local patriarch who is hoping to barter them for the release of his captured son. A bond of understanding develops between the soldiers and their captors, but it is broken when plans for their release go awry and a chain of violence and retaliation is precipitated. 99 min. DVD 2267

Director Sergei Eisenstein's long-lost silent film shot by the great Eduard Tisse in 1931. Divided into segments; a wedding, a bullfight, a fiesta, a dramatized abortive uprising at the turn of the century. Russian with English subtitles. 1979. 85 min. Video/C 999:876

Also on DVD 668: Romance sentimentale: Eisenstein's first sound film, this experimental 1930 short is a dazzling symphony of images and sounds, made in collaboration with Alexandrov and Tisse. Misery and fortune of woman: A 20 minute excerpt from an ultra-rare 1929 film by Eisenstein, Alexandrov and Tisse intended to encourage legal and sanitary birth/abortion clinics in Europe. A stunning dramatization of the plight of working class women. DVD 668

Directed by Tengiz Abuladze. Cast: Avtandil Makharadze, Iya Ninidze, Merab Ninidze, Zeinab Botsvadze, Veriko Anjaparidz. In a small, somewhat surreal Russian village, a mysterious woman is put on trial for repeatedly digging up the body of Varlam, the town's recently deceased ruler. The trial progresses and the townspeople learn that the woman's parents perished under Varlam's vicious reign of terror along with other innocents. As her ghastly revelations gradually reveal the truth about Varlam's monstrous inhumanity, the film is transformed into a searing expose of the brutal repressions and heroic sacrifices of the Soviet Union's Stalinist era. In Georgian with English subtitles. 151 min. DVD 2352; vhs 999:2738

Cannes Film Festival - Grand Prize of the Jury; FIPRESCI Prize; Prize of the Ecumenical Jury

The Return (Vozvrashchenie) (2003)

Directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev. Cast: Vladimir Garin, Ivan Dobronravov, Konstantin Lavromenko, Natalya Vdovina. Having a fatherless childhood, young brothers Andrei and Ivan have grown closer than most siblings. But when they least expect it, the father the boys have never known returns. Under the cool midnight sun of a coastal Russian summer, the boys eagerly hop into a car for a fishing trip with a complete stranger they absolutely need to believe is their father. As they travel deep into the wilderness, their journey devolves from vacation to boot camp to father-son love triangle and ultimately to a test of wills that pushes to the brink of violence. 105 min. DVD 4458

Directed by Boris Khlebnikov & Aleksei Popogrebskii. Cast: Igor Chernevich, Gleb Puskepalis, Agirppina Steklova, Alexandr Ilyin, Vladimir Kucherenko, Evgeny Syty. A father sets off from Moscow with his 11-year-old son for his sister's house in Koktebel by the Black Sea. With no money, nor means of transportation, they drift through the expansive and mesmeric landscapes at the mercy of chance. For the father, the journey is an attempt to restore self-respect and win back the trust of his son. For the boy, the mythic coastal town holds the key to a new life. 105 min. DVD 6338

Directed by Alexander Sokurov. A modern filmmaker magically finds himself transported to the 18th century where he embarks on a time-traveling journey through 300 years of Russian history. Notable as the longest uninterrupted shot in film history and the first feature film ever created in a single take. 96 min. DVD 1926

The term "The Russian Idea" is used to describe a desire for revolution, to create a utopia. In this film director Sergei Selyanov attempts to prove that 'our national films' that have become part of the world culture are connected with 'The Russian Idea' in one way or the other, using clips from the films of Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Vertov. 53 min. 1999. Video/C MM445

The Sacrifice (Offret) (1986)

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Featuring Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood, Allan Edwall. A dark and complex drama about redemption and the nuclear holocaust. When a middle aged intellectual in retirement on an island in the Baltic Seas witnesses signs of what he believes to be a nuclear holocaust, he offers to make the ultimate sacrifice in return for the salvation of mankind. 145 min.

Also includes: "Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky" (Zapechatlennoe vremia), 1988, by Michal Leszczylowski. This film shows the director Andre Tarkovsky in action as he makes his own picture "The Sacrifice." The program explains the motivation behind the film and contains illuminatin of Tarkovsky's working methods and style and how he overcame various technical problems during the film-making. Includes interviews with members of the cast and crew. 101 min. (246 min. total running time.) DVD 200

British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards - Best Foreign-language Film

Cannes Film Festival - Grand Prize of the Jury; FIPRESCI Prize; Prize of the Ecumenical Jury

The Second Circle (Krug vtoroy) (1990)

Directed by Aleksandr Sokurov. Cast: Petr Aleksandrov, Nadezhda Rodnova, Tamara Timofeeva, Aleksandr Bystriakov.
In a remote Siberian village, an anonymous young man emerges from a blizzard to claim his late father's body. He tries to come to terms with his father's death and to deal with the mundane details of his burial in a society cut off from spirituality. 85 min. DVD X4277

Based on Eisenstein's memoirs, this autobiographical film reflects the inner world of the great Russian film director during the tragic years of two Russian revolutions and the Stalin terror. The film follows Eisenstein on a long voyage abroad which he started in 1929, and presents transformed episodes from Eisenstein's films and his contemporaries, as well as rare archival shots of Eisenstein himself presented with a soundtrack of his reminiscences, which are sometimes very personal. 1996. 92 min. Video/C 7059

Directed by Oleg Kovalov. Left unfinished by Eisenstein, the film (originally to be titled: Que viva Mexico and produced in 1938)) was highly structured, and was to consist of four "novellas" or "scenarios" plus a prologue and epilogue. The precise order and content of these episodes was constantly changing, but the overall film would trace the history of Mexico from precolonial times through Spanish conquest to contemporary times. Each episode has its own distinct style, is dedicated to a different Mexican artist, and also bases itself on some primal element (stone, water, iron, fire, air). The soundtrack in each case features a different Mexican folk song. A very rare film, this is not a re-working by another filmmaker, but the original film itself. 100 min. DVD X6482

Directed by A. Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky. Cast: Lyudmilla Gurchenko, Natalia Andreichenko, Nikita Mikhalkov, Vitaly Solomin, Vladimir Samoilov, Igor Okhlupin. An epic romantic drama about three generations of two feuding Russian families, the rich Solomins and the poor Ustyuzhanins, of a rural Siberian village. The film spans more than six decades of Russian history encompassing the Bolshevik Revolution, two World Wars and the era of modernization in which the village is threatened by petroleum exploration. Through their multi-generational conflicts and alliances, the film dramatizes the evolution of the Russian people, bound together by the common struggle for survival and faithfulness to the motherland. 206 min. (2 tapes) DVD X3979; vhs 999:2058

Directed by A. Nikita Mikhalkov. A foreign entrepreneur ventures to Russia in 1885 with dreams of selling a new experimental steam-driven harvester in the wilds of Siberia. Julia Ormond portrays his assistant, who falls in love with a young Russian officer, and spends the next 10 years perfecting the harvester and pursuing her love, who has been exiled to Siberia. 180 min. DVD 8988

Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov. Cast: Elena Solovei, Rodion Nakhapetov, Aleksandr Kaliagin, Oleg Basilashvili.
During the Russian civil war, a Moscow film crew has gathered in the Crimea. The leading actress, Olga, contemplates the revolutionary situation, and after viewing a newsreel of White Army atrocities chooses to return to Bolshevik-controlled Moscow. 94 min. DVD X4649

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Ground control has been receiving strange transmissions from the three remaining residents of the Solaris space station. When cosmonaut and psychologist Kris Kelvin is sent to investigate, he experiences the strange phenomena that afflict the Solaris crew, sending him on a voyage into the darkest recesses of his own consciousness. On the water planet Solaris human space explorers encounter a unique and radical intelligence. Contact between man and this entity stretches the limits of reason and insanity, knowledge and comprehension. Based on the novel by Stanislaw Lem (PG7158.L39 S6 Main Stack, Moffitt; PG7158.L39 S613 1970a Main Stack) 167 min. DVD 6406; vhs 999:850

Directed by Aleksandr Sokurov. Documentary. In 1994, Alexander Sokurov accompanied Russian troops assigned to a frontier military post at the Tajikistan/Afghanistan border to film their experiences. While unnamed tribal forces occasionally engaged the troops in skirmishes, Sokurov's haunting documentary chronicles the downtime between activity. He effectively captures what it is like to be there as a Russian soldier -- the isolation, the mood of futility that afflicts the troops, and the harsh environment. 340 min. DVD X2634

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. At the center of an outlawed region called The Zone lies a mystical room altered by unnatural forces. Armed guards are the first in a series of lethal obstructions that prevent outsiders from reaching the place where fantastic powers can fulfill one's greatest desires. Only the Stalker can lead a scientist and writer through The Zone where an obstacle course of mental and physical barriers tests the limits of their endurance. At the end they must face a room where the center of power and evil confronts them and the future of mankind. 163 min. DVD 2138

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Cast: Igor Fomchenko, Vladimir Zamansky, N. Arhangelskaya.
At the center of the film is the unlikely friendship between Sasha, a young boy who loves to play the violin, and Sergey, the macho driver of a steamroller. The film sidesteps sentimentality to give us a warm yet ironic look at two individuals who bridge differences in generations to form a powerful bond. From a story by S. Bakhmetyeva. 43 min. DVD X1677

Directed by Alexander Sokurov. Cast: Issey Ogata, Robert Dawson, Kaori Momoi, Shiro Sano.
A dramatization of the events leading up to Emperor Hirohito's momentous speech after Japan has lost the war, the historic renunciation of his divine status, and his meetings with General Douglas MacArthur, the commander-in-chief of the occupying American forces, who advises his own president not to declare the Japanese leader a war criminal. Special features: production notes by Alexander Sokurov; theatrical trailer; stills gallery.
110 min. DVD X3877

Director, Otar Iosseliani. Cast: Gela Kandelaki, Gogi Chkheidze, Jansug Kakhidze, Irine Jandieri, Elene Landia, I. Mdivani. Guy Agladze resides in a large city and plays in an orchestra. Guy has a number of friends and acquaintances. His days are hectic and busy. He has to manage too much and he is always late. His time, his energy, his talents evaporate in the hassle of the day and among the little things to be done. Guy dies in an accident without having managed to note down the music that his soul was playing in the rare moments of his solitude. 85 min. DVD 4448

Directed by Pavel Chukhrai. Cast: Vladimir Mashkov, Katerina Rednikova, Misha Philipchuk. Set during post-World War II Russia, this is a tale of passion, betrayal and innocence lost, as seen through the eyes of an impressionable young boy. (DVD version includes scene selections, production notes, interactive menus, theatrical trailer). 94 min. DVD 90

Pozefsky, Peter. "Childhood and the representation of the history of Stalinism in Russian cinema of the transition period." Studies in Russian & Soviet Cinema; 2010, Vol. 4 Issue 1, p23-44, 22p,
UC users only

Directed by Kira Muratova. Cast: Svetlana Kolenda, Renata Litvinova, Mikhail Demidov, Vassily Rybakin, Alexi Shevchenko, Gennady Tkachenko.
This Russian film charts two young women's bittersweet search for passion. Lilia and Violetta enter the world of horse racing for the love of the game, and while there, they meet jockeys who are fascinated with them but what takes precedence -- love or sports? They'll soon find out. 107 min. DVD 7940

Directed by Hiner Saleem. Cast: Romen Avinian, Lala Sarkissian, Ivan Franek, Rouuzanna-Vite Mesropyan, Zahal Karielachvili. A small Armenian village faces tough times after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Hamo is a widower with a small military pension and three useless sons. While making one of his daily visits to his wife's grave he meets Nina and the two begin to date. 88 min. DVD 4935

Directed by Andrei Maksimov. A Russian television mini-series centering around Vovochka, a ten-year-old boy and ever-inventive daredevil, who happens to be quite a handful for the grown-ups around him. With Vovochka's arrival at his country place on the eve of the New Year holidays, the life of that quiet suburban Moscow village blows up, both literally and figuratively. 95 min. DVD 2334

Director, Aleksandr Gornovsky and Karen Shakhnazarov. Cast: Vladimir Ilin, Aleksei Vertkov, Aleksei Zharkov, Aleksandr Pankratov-Chernyi, Evgenii Stychkin. An adaptation of Anton Chekhov's legendary short story, Ward No. 6 chronicles one man's descent into madness. Dr. Ragin is the head doctor at a provincial insane asylum, where he daily interacts with the abandoned, the unloved and the forgotten. Lonely and isolated in his personal life, he finds solace in the long philosophical dialogues with his brilliant patient Gromov, which lead him to question the nature of his own existence. Updating the 1892 tale to the present day, the film is shot in a real mental institution on the outskirts of Moscow, and features interviews with actual patients. Based on the novel of the same title (Palata No. 6) by Anton Chekhov. 93 min. DVD X6394

Directed by Yefim Gribov. Cast: Cast: Dima Davydov, Lyubov Rumyantseva, Semen Strugachev, Vadim Danilevsky, Danuta Slavgorodskaia. In this Russian comedy, set at the turn-of-the-century, a Russian Jewish family Leaves Russia to find a new life in the New World. Seen through the eyes of 11-year-old Motl, he creates a sense of wonder and chaotic adventure as his family makes their way towards America. 82 min. DVD X6882; vhs 999:3277

Directed by Vladimir Motyl. Cast: Anatolii Kuznetsov, Pavel Luspekaev, Spartak Mishulin, Kakhi Kavsadze, R. Kurkina. In this Central Asian action film a recently discharged soldier makes his way across the desert, seeking only to get to his native village. He happens to be in the area usually occupied by the bandit Abdulla and his gang. The bandit has left, abandoning all the women connected with the gang, and it falls to the soldier to help them get to safety. 80 min. DVD 4826

Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov. Cast: Irina Kupchenko, Mikhail Ulianov.
Through the conversation and soliloquies of a man and his ex-wife in her small Moscow apartment, the reasons for their separation are revealed. 90 min. DVD X4650

Directed by Yakov Protazanov. Los, an engineer living in Moscow, dreams of Aelita, the Queen of Mars, and builds a spaceship to take him to her. They fall in love, but Los soon finds himself embroiled in the planet's proletarian uprising. Based on a novella with the same title by A. Tolstoy. 98 min. DVD 84

Directed by Alexander Dovzhenko. Based on an actual incident, this is a dramatic account of the Ukraine from the First World War through the February and October Revolutions, to the suppression of a workers' revolt in 1918. Dovzhenko presents harsh, realistic scenes of Czarist brutality and war's destruction, but his juxtapositions of the Russian workers and peasants are both impressionistic and symbolic. 75 min. DVD 8448; VHS 999:2101 (digitally mastered)

Director, Sergei M. Eisenstein. Thanks to the success of his earlier Strike, director Sergei Eisenstein was commissioned by the Soviet government to make a film commemorating the Uprising of 1905. Eisenstein's scenario, boiled down from what was to have been a multipart epic of
the occasion, focussed on the crew of the Battleship Potemkin. Fed up with the extreme cruelties of their officers-and their maggot -- ridden meat rations -- the sailors stage a violent mutiny. This, in turn, sparks an abortive citizen revolt against the
Czarist regime. The film's centerpiece is stage upon the Odessa Steps, where in 1905 the Czar's Cossacks methodically shot down and hacked up rioters and innocent bystanders alike. To Eisenstein, this single bloody incident was the chrysalis of the successful 1917 Bolshevik revolution; thus, he poured his heart and soul into the Odessa Steps episode. The result was what many film historians consider the most famous sequence ever filmed; it is certainly one of the most imitated, as witness Brian DePalma's The Untouchables (1987). This triumph of Eisenstein's "rhythmical editing" technique is in the middle of film; it is not the climax, as many who've never seen Potemkin automatically assume. Incredibly, the sequence is actually topped by Eisenstein's jubilant finale, wherein the sailors of Imperial Navy, in solidarity with their comrades, disregard orders to fire upon the Potemkin. Their pivotal decision is symbolized by the legendary "waking lions" montage (Eisenstein isn't too subtle, but
boy was he effective!) The two major sequences in Battleship Potemkin can still bring an audience to its feet even when taken out of context. Considering the intensity of their performances, it is astonishing to learn that all the actors in the film were amateurs, selected by Eisenstein because of "rightness" for roles. Pictorial quality varies from print to print, but even in a duped-down version, Battleship Potemkin is must-see cinema. [Hal Erickson, All-Movie Guide) DVD 8673 includes the original 1926 Edmund Meisel score, performed by the Deutsches Filmorchestra Babelsberg and conducted by Helmut Imig. Special features (disc 1): "Tracing the Battleship Potemkin," a documentary on the making and restoration of the film (43 min.); "Behind the scenes" photo gallery; deleted scenes photo gallery; promotional materials photo gallery.
74 min. DVD 8673; DVD 7; VHS 999:1103; PFA VHS print with Russian intertitles 999:1102

Director, Abram Room. An early silent satirical film produced in the Soviet Union which points up the social consequences of the Soviet housing shortage. A husband and wife invite a friend to live with them and sleep on the sofa, but soon the husband winds up on the sofa. A landmark film because of humor, naturalism, and its sympathetic portrayal of the woman. 74 min. DVD X352; vhs 999:3253

Director, Lev Kuleshov. Cast: Aleksandra Khokhlova, Sergey Komarov, Vladimir Fogel, Porfiriy Podobed, Petr Galadshev. Four men and a woman go to the Yukon in search of gold, but when two of the prospectors are murdered their companions set off on a desparate search for the killers to exact retribution. Based on Jack London's story "The Unexpected." 89 min. DVD X6864; vhs 999:1665 vhs 999:1689

Chess Fever (Shakhmatnaya goryachka) (1925)

Directed by Vsevolod I. Pudovkin. A Keaton-esque comedy in which a young man's passion for the game threatens to wreck his marriage. DVD 2902; also on DVD X352; vhs 999:1689

Director, Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky. Cast: Yuliya Solntseva, Igor Ilyinsky, Nikolai Tsereteli, Anna Dmokhovskaya, M. Tsybulsky.
A charming, silent romantic comedy that tells the tale of a young man who falls in love with the title character. She becomes a famous film star and herself falls in love, not with the hero, but with her cameraman. No one ever gets what he or she truly wants, though they continue to pursue their lost dreams to the bitter end. Reveling in the unexpected throughout, it is capped by an adroit surprise ending. Originally released in 1924 at Mezhrabpom-Rus Studios; this version mastered from 35mm elements restored by the Cinémathèque de Toulouse in 2007. 112 min. DVD X6403

Directors, Grigori Kozintsev, Leonid Trauberg. A story dealing with underworld figures who victimized the people of Petrograd during the Civil War. Unusual photography gave this work a near bizarre style and at times approached expressionism. 55 min. 999:1090 (segments also featured in What Do Those Old Films Mean, DVD X1238 [preservation copy]; vhs Video/C 1406:5)

Diplomatic Pouch (Sumka Dipkuryera) (1927)

Director, Alexander Dovzhenko. A story about a Soviet diplomatic courier and the theft of Soviet state papers which are recovered. The director, Dovzhenko, himself plays a small role in the film. Russian intertitles. 66 min. 999:1088

Folklore and Legend. Contents: Brigand Brothers based on poem by Pushkin ; 16th century Russian Wedding based on play by P. Sukhotin ; Rusalka based on play by Pushkin. Drama in a Gyspy camp (Siversen, 1908) and the unreleased Brigand Brothers (Goncharov, 1912) are plein air folklore subjects, while a 16th century Russian wedding (1909) and Rusalka (1910), both directed by pioneer enthusiast Vasilii Goncharov, show how rapidly Russian cinema espoused national and cultural themes. 40 min. DVD X578; vhs 999:687

Starewicz's Fantasies. Contents: The Dragonfly and the Ant -- Christmas Eve -- The Lily of Belgium. Starewicz's fantasies, Wladislaw Starewicz's later puppet animation is now better known than his brilliant beginning at the Khanzhonkov Studio. He pioneered insect-puppets in The ant and the grasshopper (1911), before turning to live-action fantasy in a version of Gogol's Christmas eve (1913) and contributing to the war effort with an anti-German allegory The lily of Belgium (1915). DVD X579; vhs 999:688

Provincial Variations. Contents: The Wedding day -- Merchant Bashkirov's Daughter. Jewish life was one of the exotic subjects covered in provincial films like the Latvian Wedding day ( Slovinski, 1912). The remarkably bleak melodrama Merchant Bashkirov's daughter (Larin, 1913), set on the Volga, was based on a real murder scandal. 55 min. DVD X580; vhs 999:689

Chardynin's Pushkin. The Queen of spades (1910) -- The house in Kolomna (1913). The former touring actor-manager, Petr Chardynin, made an early name for himself and gave Russian cinema a distinctly cultured
orientation with Pushkin adaptations like The Queen of Spades (1910) and The House In Kolomna (1913). In the latter Chardynin's protege Mozzhukhin played both a dashing officer and a farcical cook in drag. 45 min. DVD X581; vhs 999:690

Class Distinctions. Contents: The Peasants' Lot (1912) -- Silent Witnesses (1914). Despite strict censorship intended to prevent any inflammatory material from reaching the screen, many early Russian films achieved a remarkably candid portrayal of social conditions. Gonsharov's The Peasants' Lot (1912) portrayed the hardship of rural life, while an early film by Bauer, Silent Witnesses (1914) dealt frankly with servants' views of their masters in a Moscow mansion. 95 min. DVD X582; vhs 999:691

Evgenii Bauer. Contents: A Child of the Big City (1913) -- The 1002nd Ruse (1915) -- Daydreams (1915). Evgenii Bauer is the major discovery from early Russian cinema. In a mere five prolific years, he achieved mastery in several genres, including the social melodrama of A Child of the Big City (1913), erotic comedy like The 1002nd Ruse (1915) and the psychological melodrama of Daydreams (1915). Admired by his
contemporaries, he raised Russian cinema to an unparalleled artistic level before his early death in mid-1917. 93 min. DVD X583; vhs 999:692

Lakov Protazanov. Contents: The Departure of a Great Old Man (1912) -- The Queen of Spades (1916). Protazanov, together with Bauer the leading director of the early Russian cinema, did not shrink from controversy in either his highly successful pre- or post-1917 careers. The
Departure of a Great Old Man (1912), about the last days of Tolstoi, provoked legal action by the outraged family. The Queen of Spades (1916) starred Mozzhukhin in one of his most compelling roles as Pushkin's haunted hero. 95 min. DVD X585; vhs 999:693

High Society. Contents: Antosha ruined by a corset (1916) -- A life for a life (1916) -- The funeral of Vera Kholodnaia (1919). A panorama of Russian cinema's social impact at the height of its ambition. Antosha Ruined by a Corset (1916) is a racy, knowing urban comdey by Russia's leading screen comedian, Anton Fertner. A Life for a Life (1916) marked the pinnacle
of Bauer's ambition to equal lavish foreign production standards. And The Funeral of Vera Kholodnaia recorded the vast public response to the early death of Russia's greatest star in 1919. 86 min. DVD X584; vhs 999:694

The End of an Era. Contents: The Revolutionary (1917) -- For Luck (1917) -- Behind the Screen (1917). Between the February and October revolutions in 1917, Russian cinema reflected urgent new themes, as in The Revolutionary. But Bauer also continued his vein of tragic melodrama in what
was to be his last film, For Luck, designed by and featuring as an actor the young Kuleshov. A poignant fragment, Behind the Screen, shows the stars Mozzhukhin and Lisenko on the eve of their departure into exile. 91 min. DVD X586; vhs 999:695

Earth (Zemlya) (1930)

Director, Alexander Dovzhenko. Trouble results in a Ukrainian village when a landowner refuses to hand over his land for a collective farm. Includes sequences of rustic beauty and of life, love and death in the Ukrainian countryside. 88 min. DVD 2902

Directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin. Shows changing conditions in Russia as seen by a young peasant who lived through the upheaval in St. Petersburg that culminated in the revolution of 1917. Made for the 10th anniversary of the Russian revolution. 89 min. DVD 8554; DVD 2902

Smith, Murray. "The Influence of Socialist Realism on Soviet Montage: The End of St. Petersburg, Fragment of an Empire, and Arsenal." Journal of Ukrainian Studies, vol. 19 no. 1. 1994 Summer. pp: 45-65.

Directed by Dziga Vertov. Entuziazm: Vertov's first sound film. This lyrical sound and musical documentary celebrates the enthusiasm with which the peasants and miners of the Don River basin in Russia fulfilled their first five-year plan quotas following the October Revolution. The film is for its innovative use of sound in synchronization as well as in counterpoint, and for its interesting cinematic effects, such as multiple superimpositions. 67 min. DVD 9188; vhs 999:2063

The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (Neobychainiye Priklucheniya Mistera Vesta v. Stranye Bolshevikov) (1924)

Director, Lev Kuleshov. Cast: Porfiriy Podobed, Boris Barnet, Aleksandra Khokhlova, Vsevolod Pudovkin, Vladimir Fogel. In this Russian-made satiric film on America's slanted view of the Soviet Union, Mr. West is a bourgeois American who visits those "mad, savage Russians" on a dare. Once in Russia, he is faced with an onslaught of strange characters and events, thrusting him into a world of danger and intrigue. He soon concludes that only through his all-American ingenuity will he survive. Silent film with Russian intertitles. 86 min. DVD X6863; 999:1142

Directed by Esfer (Esther) Shub. "With remarkable historic footage and radical editing, this film stands as a colossal documentary portrait of the collapse of the Czarist regime and the triumphant rise of communist rule. Director Shub, a pioneer in editing and mentor to Sergei Eisenstein (influencing his montage theories), unearthed thousands of films--including personal footage by the Czar's own cameramen--to bring to life a daring and innovative historical drama of the events from 1912 to 1917." [Facets catalog] 78 min. DVD X6865; DVD X2814; Video/C 3769; also VHS Video/C MM479

Directed by Dziga Vertov. Commissioned by the Moscow Soviet as a documentary and information film for the citizens of Moscow prior to municipal elections, film is a tableau of Soviet life and achievements in the period of reconstruction following the Civil War of 1917-1921. 72 min. DVD X6865; Video/C 3770

Comedy film in which a single man attempts to trick others into caring for his infant child. Silent films with Russian intertitles. PFA print. Video/C 4036

The General Line (aka Old and New; Staroye i novoye) (1929)

Directed by S.M. Eisenstein and G.V. Alexandrov. Cast: Marfa Lapkinov, M. Ivanin, Konstantin Vasilyev.
The peasant woman, Marfa Lapkina, not possessing a horse to work the land and wanting to change the situation, organizes a work group of milk maids with the aid of the regional agronomist and some poor peasants. Despite the opposition of the koulaks, the well-being of the collective grows. The work-directors help the group obtain its first tractor. The end of the film shows ten tractors working the land, and sitting on one of them: Marfa. 90 min. DVD X6863; DVD X4832

Directors, Eduard Ioganson, Fridrikh Ermler. This is a warm, tender story about Katka, a young woman who comes to Petrograd in the early 1920s and has to sell apples to earn a livelihood. After being seduced and cheated she is rescued by Fedka, a gentle man of the streets. Film is notable as it is regarded as an accurate portrayal of this period of Soviet history and constitutes one of the first attempts to create a film based upon contemporary Soviet "everyday life". 86 min. PFA print. Silent film with Russian intertitles. vhs 999:1143 (segments also featured in What Do Those Old Films Mean, Video/C 1406:5)

Directed by Dziga Vertov. A collection of short excerpts from newsreels and documentary films of Soviet life in the early 1920s made by Vertov and his "Kino-Eye" group. PFA print vhs 999:1141 (segments also featured in What Do Those Old Films Mean, Video/C 1406:5)

Directed by Dziga Vertov. Excerpts from the second of the newsreel journal series which originally consisted of 23 issues produced from 1922-1925. Consists of a record of Soviet life edited into a unique genre of mixed documentary, animation and reviews and provides a record of the Revolution's social achievements. Kino-Pravda footage includes: Work on the reconstruction of the Moscow trolley system, Line No. 13 -- Tanks on the labor front (Leveling the Khodinka Airport) -- At the trial of the Social-Revolutionaries -- Organizing the peasants to join the communes -- Town of Gelenzhik (Children's sanitarium ; Save the starving children!) -- For inquiries regarding traveling film-shows. 14 min. vhs 999:2063

Director/script, Sergei Komarov. A rare, hilarious cinematic oddity, a film formulated from Kuleshov montage techniques from footage of the famous American couple's visit to Russia in 1926, wherein a regular guy tries to win a girl through friendship with the movie stars. Fairbanks and Pickford didn't know of their role in the film, being spliced in later according to montage theory. Silent film with Ukranian subtitles. 79 min. PFA print. vhs 999:1185

Presents 3 films by Russian film director Evgeni Bauer noted for creating macabre masterpieces, dramas obsessed with doomed love and death, astonishing for graceful camera movements, risque themes and opulent sets. The films were buried in Soviet archives for decades until the fall of the Iron Curtain.
Contents: Twilight of a woman's soul (1913, 49 min.): Bauer's first surviving film, tells the story of a society woman who kills her rapist and in its aftermath must make a new life for herself when her husband leaves her. -- After death (1915, 46 min.): Adapted from a story by Ivan Turgenev, explores one of Bauer's favorite themes: the psychological hold of the dead over the living. -- Dying swan (1916, 49 min.): An artist obsessed with the idea of capturing death on canvas becomes fixated on a mute ballerina. Special features: 37-minute documentary film essay on Evgeni Bauer by Russian film scholar Yuri Tsivisan. Silent with musical scores. DVD 3875

Directed by Dziga Vertov. Photographer, Mikhail Kaufman. An experimental film without any plot, showing, through a succession of street and interior scenes, all the tricks of which the instrument is capable creating a boldly detailed portrait of the Moscow of the l920s. Uses numerous cinematic techniques such as split screens, multiple superimpositions and variable speeds to study the relation between cinema and reality.

DVD 88 Kino. Original music composed and performed by the Alloy Orchestra following the instructions written by Dziga Vertov. 68 min. Special features: Audio essay by Yuri Tsivian.

DVD 2992 Kino. Music by Michael Nyman and his band. 68 min.

Miss Mend: An Adventure Serial in Three Parts (Soviet Union, 1926)

Directors, Fyodor Otsep, Boris Barnet . Cast: Natalia Glan, Vladimir Fogel, Igor Ilyinsky.
An action-packed adventure serial in three feature-length episodes, produced in Russia with the goal of rivaling, and possibly even surpassing, the most entertaining American movies of the 1920s. Based on a 1923 pulp novel allegedly written by the American "Jim Dollar" (actually the nom-de-plume of a Russian woman, Marietta Shaginian). The film's heroine, Vivian Mend, is an elegant urban professional who earns her own living and raises a child without the help of any man. Includes some pointed comments on labor relations, racism, excessive wealth, gratuitous violence and even rape. Special features: 2 documentaries (on disc 2): Miss Mend : a whirlwind vision of an imagined America; The music behind Miss Mend : the invisible orchestra. Booklet: Miss Mend and soviet americanism / Ana Olenina and Maxim Pozoodrovkin. 285 min.min. DVD X4023

Directed by Vsevolod I. Pudovkin. Mother (Mat) was the first of Russian-filmmaker Vsevold Pudovkin's "personal epics"-films that weave spectacular historical tales while never losing sight of the individual, and individual emotions, that motivate those tales. Based on a Maxim Gorky story, Mother recreates the abortive Russian revolution of 1905. The title character, played by Vera Baranovkskaya, is the unwitting cause of the imprisonment of her political-activist son Nikolai Batalov. When her boy is killed in an escape attempt, she is awakened to the horrors of the Czarist regime, and picks up Batalov's political cudgel. She too, is killed while
participating in a worker's protest. The sweep and scope of the action scenes in Mother never dwarf the human story. What sticks in the mind most vividly is the intimate scene in which Batalov, contemplating his upcoming release from prison, begins dreaming of his mother, while superimposed closeups of her face blend into lyrical shots of the Russian spring thaw. Mother was the first of Pudovkin's trilogy of Revolution-inspired silent masterpieces: the subsequent films were End of St. Petersburg and Storm over Asia. (Hal Erickson, All-Movie Guide). 88 min. DVD 21; vhs 999:4

Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov. An ethnographic treasure that documents the harsh conditions of life in the isolated mountain village of Ushkul. As the focus of the film shifts to the Svan's barbaric religious customs the film is transformed into a work of Communist propaganda, holding up these grotesque, near-pagan ceremonies (which many Svanetians later denied as accurate) as an example of religion's corruptive influence. 53 min. DVD X6866; VHS 999:1688

The Second Circle (Krug Vtoroj) (1990)

Directed by Aleksandr Sokurov. A young man travels to a frigid Siberian town and tries to come to terms with his father's death and to deal with the mundane details of his burial in a society cut off from spiritual values. 92 min. 999:2241

Directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin. Revolutionary drama centered on a young Mongol thought to be descended from Genghis Khan whom imperialists seek to use to further their expansionist interests. After a series of misadventures the young man rebels and leads his people against their oppressors. 125 min. DVD 58

Directed by Sergei Eisenstein. Performed by the First Workers' Theatre of Proletkult: Grigorii Aleksandrov, Maksim Shtraukh, Mikhail Gomorov, Y. Glizer, Ivan Kliukvin, Aleksandr Antonov. The first full-length feature project of pantheon Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, Strike is a government-commissioned celebration of the unrealized 1905 Bolshevik revolution. The story is set in motion by a series of outrages and humiliations perpetrated on the workers of a metalworks plant. The Czarist regime is unsympathetic to the workers, characteristically helping the plant owners to subjugate the hapless victims. Finally, the workers revolt, staging an all-out strike. Here is where Eisenstein's theory of "the montage of shocks" was given its first major workout. While the notion of juxtaposing short, separate images to heighten tension and excitement was not new, Eisenstein was the first to fully understand the value of using sudden-shock images (a bloody face, a fired weapon, a descending club) to make his dramatic and sociological points. Playing to mixed reviews and small audiences in Russia, Strike proved a success worldwide, assuring Eisenstein complete creative freedom on his next project, the immortal Potemkin. (Hal Erickson, All-Movie Guide). Special features on DVD X6404: Glumov's diary (original title: Dnevnik Glumova): Sergei Eisenstein's first film, a short made to be used in his stage production of Alexander Ostrovsky's "Enough stupidity in every wise man" (1923; 5 min.); "Eisentein and the revolutionary spirit": film historian Natacha Laurent discusses Eisenstein's work in the context of the Communist Revolution and contemporary Soviet filmmaking (2008; 37 min.). 80 min. DVD X6404 (restored); DVD 353; VHS 999:2100 (94 min., digitally mastered); VHS 999:695

Directed by Sergei Eisenstein. Borrowing its title from a book by American communist John Reed (of Reds fame), Sergei Eisenstein's Ten Days That Shook
the World reenacts the crucial week-and-a-half in October, 1918, when the Russian Kerensky regime was toppled by the
Bolsheviks. While Eisenstein takes certain liberties in characterization--those opposing the Bolsheviks are depicted as mental
defectives or grossly overweight clowns--his re-creation of such events as the storming of the Winter Palace are painstakingly
meticulous. The "actor" playing Lenin, a nonprofessional worker named Nikandrov, so closely resembles the genuine article
that the effect is positively eerie. So authentic is Eisenstein's reconstruction of events that, for years, TV documentaries have
been passing off clips from Ten Days That Shook the World as "actual" scenes of the Revolution. While impressive on a
technical level, the film never truly stirs the audience's emotions; Eisenstein purists have argued that this "alienation" technique
was the director's intention all along, forcing the viewer to observe the events intellectually rather than emotionally. Produced in
celebration of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, Ten Days That Shook the World was initially titled October. (Hal Erickson, All-Movie Guide) 120 min. DVD 22

Directed by Alexander Dovzhenko. An allegory in which the central theme is the relationship of an old man with his two sons, one bad, one good, searching for treasure buried in the hill of Zvenigora. The good son represents the progressive social order for which the revolution strove; the bad son represents the chaos of any major social upheaval. Zvenigora is less a film than a tone poem, set forth by master Russian cinematic poet Alexander Dovzhenko. Moving outside the studio system for the first time (it was his fourth film), Dovzhenko uses lyrical location shots of rural Ukraine and its farmers to excellent advantage. The very complex storyline (too much so to dwell on at great length here) combines elements of fact and folklore in relating the "history" the Ukraine, using the search for a fabled treasure as the glue that holds the tale together. This is not an accessible "classroom classic" like Eisenstein's Potemkin. Be prepared to think and be challenged, and not to sit back comfortably, while experiencing Zvenigora. (Hal Erickson, All-Movie Guide) Silent film with Russian intertitles. 84 min. DVD X6595; vhs 999:1092

What Do Those Old Films Mean?: Part 5: U.S.S.R. 1924-1928: Born Yesterday.

Contents: The House on Trubnaya Square -- The Cigarette-girl of the Mossel Prom -- Katka's Apples -- The Devil's Wheel -- Kino-Eye -- Lace -- Remnants of an Empire. Explores the prominence of themes of social disorder, change, and experimentation in post-revolutionary Soviet cinema of the 1930's. Examines the sexual division of labor in the home. Includes excerpts from rare films that are virtually unknown in the West. Explores the prominence of themes of social disorder, change, and experimentation in post-revolutionary Soviet cinema of the 1930's. Examines the sexual division of labor in the home. Includes excerpts from rare films that are virtually unknown in the West. Video/C 1406:5 Pt. 5

Directed by Frantisek Vlácil. Cast: Petr Cepek, Emma Cerna, Jan Vostrcil, Pavel Landovsky.
In the aftermath of World War II, a former soldier takes charge of a manor formerly owned by a German family. He falls in love with the daughter, who is now a maid, and is forced to confront the conflict between his love and his conscience when he discovers that she is sheltering her German-soldier brother. 99 min. DVD 8534

Directed by Jan Svankmajer. Alice is sitting in her room full of toys reading Lewis Carroll's story, during which she too is carried off to Wonderland. As she follows the elusive White Rabbit so begins this dream expedition into the landscape of childhood, combining techniques of animation, puppet theatre and live action. English version. 86 min. DVD 325; 999:1554

Directed by Vojtech Jasny. Cast: Vlastimil Brodsky, Radoslav Brzobohaty, Vladimir Mensik, Waldemar Matuska, Drahomira Hofmanova, Martin Ruzek as the speaker.
During the Prague Spring, that brief flowering of freedom that preceded the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Vojtech Jasny directed this impassioned account of his country's tragic relationship with the Soviet Union. The film traces the lives of the people in a village from the summer of 1945 to 1968 as pressure is put on different villagers to join the local Communist Party. As time passes the leader of the local farmers is finally coerced into becoming a party member.
DVD. 114 min. DVD X26

Directed by Matej Minac. Cast: Josef Abraham, Libuse Safrankova, Jiri Bartoska, Ondrej Vetchy, Branislav Holicek, Lucia Culkova, Tereza Brodska, Marian Labuda, Rupert Graves.
Inspired by the real life heroics of Nicholas Winton who saved hundreds of Czech Jewish children from the Nazis. The Silberstein's are a large and close knit extended family living in Czechoslovakia. Believing in the decency of mankind, they don't pay heed to the Nazi threat. They finally realize the true horror of what is coming, but it is too late. Making the toughest possible decision, they must decide if they will turn their young son, David, over to Nicholas and risk never seeing him again. 95 min. DVD 7254

Directed by Vladimír Michálek. Cast: Vlastimil Brodský, Stella Zzvorková, Stanislav Zindulka.
Fanda is an old man who refuses to grow up. Despite pleas from his exasperated wife, Emilie, and son who want him to make some serious plans for the future, he ignores their nagging and spends his days seeking amusement and adventure. Aided by a pal, Fanda keeps his acting skills sharpened by pretending he is a retired opera star in the market for an opulent country estate. When he fakes his own death, his wife decides she has had enough and files for divorce. They soon discover that instead of worrying about old age, perhaps it's time to live each day to the fullest. 101 min. DVD X4584

Directed by Jan Nemec. Nemec's diploma film from the Prague Film Academy. The film is a hallucinatory moment, virtually without dialogue and handles one man's feverish attempt to steal a loaf of bread from a Nazi-guarded train. 10 min. In Czech with German subtitles. Video/C 999:3795

Black Peter (Cerný Petr) (1963)

Written and directed by Milos Forman. This first feature film by Milos Forman presents Peter, a teenage malcontent, who lands a job in a grocery store, which pleases his pompous father. When, Peter finds the work distasteful and depressing, he seeks relief through a clumsy romance with a young girl. A delightful coming-of-age film that finds its humor in the keenly observed details of youthful romance, teenage dissatisfaction, and the small moments of life. 85 min. DVD 2858

Directed by Jirí Menzel. Comedy-drama about a young tainmaster employed in a tiny station during World War II. He becomes involved in a plot to blow up a German ammunition train, but when the plan backfires, he is forced to commit the ultimate act of courage. Based on the novel by Bohumil Hrabal. DVD 1180; vhs 999:1073

Girelli, Elisabetta. "Subverting space: Private, public and power in three Czechoslovak films from the 1960s and '70s." Studies in Eastern European Cinema; Mar2011, Vol. 2 Issue 1, p49-59, 11p
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The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer: The Early Years, Vol. 1 (1965-1980)

Utilizing a delirious combination of puppets, humans, stop-motion animation and live action, Svankmajer's films conjure up a dreamlike universe that is at once dark, macabre, witty and perversely visceral. This is a collection of his short works produced between 1965 and 1980. Contents: The fall of the House of Usher (1980, 15 min.) -- A game with stones (1965, 9 min.) -- Et cetera (1966, 7 min.) -- Punch and Judy (1966, 10 min.) -- The flat (1968, 13 min.) -- Picnic with Weissmann (1969, 13 min.) -- A quiet week in the house (1969, 19 min.). 86 min. DVD 6298

The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer: The Years, Vol. 2 (1982-1992)

Utilizing a delirious combination of puppets, humans, stop-motion animation and live action, Svankmajer's films conjure up a dreamlike universe that is at once dark, macabre, witty and perversely visceral. This is a collection of his short works produced between 1982 and 1992. Contents: Dimensions of dialogue (1982, 12 min.) -- Down to the cellar (1983, 15 min.) -- The pendulum, the pit and hope (1983, 16 min.) -- Meat love (1988, 1 min.) -- Flora (1989, 20 sec.) -- The death of Stalinism in Bohemia (1990, 15 min.) -- Food (1992, 17 min.). 76 min. DVD 6299

Directed by Vera Chytilová. In this Czech new wave film two madcap teenage girls decide that since the world is spoiled they will be spoiled as well. Accordingly they embark on a series of destructive pranks in which they consume and destroy the world about them. 75 min. DVD 1825

Directed by Jan Nemec. Diamonds of the night is a study of two Jewish boys who escape from a train which is transporting them from one concentration camp to another. The film goes beyond the theme of war and anti-Nazism to concern itself with man's struggle to preserve human dignity. Based on: Diamonds of the night by Arnost Lustig (Main (Gardner) Stacks PG5038.L85 D46131 1986) 64 min. DVD X6458; vhs 999:3795

Directed by Alfred Radok. Cast: Blanka Waleska, Otomar Krejca, Viktor Ocasek, Zdenka Baldova, Jiri Spirit, Eduard Kohout. One of the first theatrical films about the Holocaust, banned for decades in the Czech Republic and then rediscovered, follows the struggles of Dr. Hannah Kaufman and her family from the time of the Nazi Occupation of Prague through her experiences in the transit camp of Theresienstadt (modern Terezin). 98 min. DVD 4133

Director, Jan Hrebejk. During World War II and the Nazi occupation of Czechoslavakia, a couple, Josef and Marie, decide to hide a young Jewish neighbor in their small apartment. They keep getting a visit from their neighbor, Horst, who is a German sympathizer who has his eye on Marie. When she rejects his advances he seeks revenge by trying to move a Nazi clerk into their home, forcing the couple to tell a lie that will change their lives forever. 122 min. DVD 1227

Directed by Gustav Machatý. Cast: Hedy Lamarr, Aribert Moog, Leopold Kramer, Jaromir Rogoz. Eva has just gotten married to an older gentleman, but discovers that he is obsessed with order in his life and doesn't have much room for passion. She becomes despondent and leaves him, returning to her father's house. One day while bathing in the lake she meets a young man and they fall in love. The husband has become grief stricken at the loss of his young bride, and fate brings him together with the young lover that has taken Eva from him. The film was highly controversial in its time largely because of a nude swimming scene. It is also perhaps the first non-pornographic movie to portray sexual intercourse,[2] although never showing more than the actors' faces. It has also been called the first on-screen depiction of a female orgasm. Based on a story by Samuel Cummins 79 min. DVD X781; vhs 999:287

Directed by Jan Sverak. Ten-year-old Eda lives in Czechoslvakia. It is 1945 he goes to school with some boys who are so mischievous that they drive away their teacher. She is replaced by a tough disciplinarian who administers frequent beatings and also brags that he played an important role in the resistance to the Nazis. Despite this, the boys take to him. This gentle drama manages to get in some political points, including well-placed jibes about the development of a "model socialist state" in Czechoslovakia after the war. 110 min. 999:2749

The End of August at the Hotel Ozone (Konec srpna v Hotelu Ozon) (Czechoslovakia, 1967)

Directed by Jan Schmidt. Cast: Beta Ponicanova, Magda Seidlerova, Vanda Kalnova, Alena Lippertova, Ondrej Jariabek.
Director Jan Schmidt paints a chilling, bleak picture of the future. Nuclear war has destroyed almost all of civilization. A group of women has gone to primal barbarity to survive. They go in search of men to help them have children. 67 min. DVD 7676

The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (Vynález zkázy) (Czechoslovakia, 1958)

Directed by Karel Zeman. Cast: Lubor Tokos, Arnost Navrátil, Miroslav Holub, Jana Zatloukalová, Frantisek Cemý.
Using a technique which combines live actors with props and backdrops designed to resemble 19th century illustrations tells the story of an evil man who wants to control all the world. Based on the novel Face au drapeau (English title: For the flag) by Jules Verne. 83 min. DVD X6443

Directed by Jan Svankmajer. An Everyman lured off the streets of Prague finds himself becoming Faust and entering a world of mind-boggling magic and strange encounters. He summons up Mephisto, makes his awful pact and is plunged into a world of laughing devils, dreams and nightmares. Film is a profoundly imaginative combination of live-action, claymation, puppet-theatre, stop-motion animation and special effects. English language version. 93 min. DVD 467; VHS 999:1594

Director, Zbynek Brynych. Cast: Miroslav Machacek, Olga Scheinpflugova, Jiri Adamira, Illia Prachar, Josef Vinklar, Zdenka Prochazkova, Slavka Budinova, Jiri Virtala.
An aging Jewish doctor is forbidden to practice medicine in Prague during the Nazi occupation. He is employed in a warehouse as a clerk, cataloguing confiscated Jewish property. When a partisan is wounded, the doctor reluctantly agrees to treat him. The doctor hides him in his run-down apartment building as he sneaks through the black-market underworld of Prague in search of morphine to ease the man's pain, ever fearful of informant neighbors and vigilant authorities. Within a historical context, director Zbynek Brynych creates a thinly-disguised allegory about contemporary communist Czechoslovakia that is rich in atmosphere and dark in tone. 100 min. DVD 7247

Director, Milos Forman. Firemen's Ball was Czechoslovakian director Milos Forman's final film in his home country; he was scouting locations in Paris when the Russians moved their tanks into Prague in 1968 causing Forman to decide to remain an expatriate. Because of the supercharged political climate of the era, critics read all sorts of allegory and hidden meanings into the Firemen's Ball. Other
critics simply accepted the film as the slapsticky tale of a disastrous small-town celebration in honor of a retiring fire chief, and laughed accordingly. Best to judge for oneself: you can catch Firemen's Ball under its original English title, or under its alternate cognomen Like a House on Fire. (Hal Erickson, All-Movie Guide) DVD 1063; vhs 999:1056

Directed by Karel Steklý. Cast: Rudolf Hrusinsky, Eva Svobodova, Josef Hlinomaz, Frantisek Filipovsky, Milos Kopecky, Svatopluk Benes. Tells the story of Schweik, a good-natured buffoon in the Czech Army during WWI, whose mishaps bring disaster to rigid military situations. Though determined to do his duty, the messes he creates expose the weaknesses of the military as an institution and bring into sharp relief the absurdity of war. 104 min. DVD 3590

Directed by Jaromil Jires. Cast: Josef Somr, Jaroslava Obermaierova, Jana Ditetova, Jaromir Hanzlik, Vera Kresadlova, Ludek Munzar, Evald Schorm. Set in Stalinist Czechoslovakia during the 1950s, this tragicomedy revolves around the consequences of a single joke: a young man, is expelled from the university and the Communist party and sentenced to six years hard labor for an irreverent postcard he sends to a lady friend. This leaves him cynical, bitter, and out for revenge. 80 min. DVD 7249

Directed by Jan Sverak. A confirmed bachelor is in for the surprise of his life when a get-rich-quick scheme backfires, setting off a wild set of circumstances and leaving him with a pint-sized new roommate. 105 min. DVD X5343

Made by Jiri Barta. Includes all eight films of Czech filmmaker Jiri Barta which combine animation of objects and puppets with live-action to fashion gothic worlds of horror and fantasy infused with humor and moral examinations. Principally with sound and music but no dialogue. Contents: A ballad about green wood (11 min.) -- The club of the laid off (25 min.) -- The design (6 min.) -- Disc jockey (10 min.) -- The last theft (21 min.) -- The pied piper of Hamelin (55 min.) -- Riddles for a candy (8 min.) -- The vanished world of gloves (16 min.). 152 min. DVD 6161

Larks on a String (Skrivanci na niti) (1969)

Director, Jir&iacute Menzel. While serving time for desertion and taking steps toward re-education, a rag-tag group of junkyard workers unite as a young couple decides to marry. Even the prison guards can't resist this romance as the wedding and on-site honeymoon unfold in a series of plot twists. 96 min. 999:3255

Director, Karel Kachyna. Cast: Tom Courtenay, Brigitte Fossey, Freddie Jones, Ingrid Held, Milan Kazko, Josef Kemr, Linda Jablonska, Daniel Margolius. A French actor is taken prisoner by the Gestapo and sentenced to perform in the "model city" of Terezin, a concentration camp filled with artists and children to prove to the world how well the Nazis treat the imprisoned Jews. But the actor discovers the horrifying truth and as he rehearses with a group of children in what is to be the last performance of their lives, he refuses to play a role in the Nazi's charade. 106 min. DVD X4915; vhs 999:3513

Director, Milos Forman. Milos Forman's black comedy stars Jana Brejchova as a young shoe factory worker who looks for love at a dance held to honor the soldiers stationed nearby. To the girl's dismay, all of the soldiers are aging reserves, so she turns to the dance's pianist (Vladimir Pucholt) instead. (Jason Ankeny, All-Movie Guide) 88 min. DVD 1064

Director, Jan Nemec. Cast: Helena Pejskova, Jana Pracharova, Zdena Skvorecka, Pavel Bosek, Ivan Vyskocil, Jan Klusak, Jiri Nemec, Ewald Schorm. A political thriller that satirizes unquestionable conformity. A group of happy picnickers run afoul of a bullying sadist who has an unbreakable hold over his followers. After he interrogates one of them, a stranger then invites everyone to an elegant, formal banquet. The affair is bizarre, and ends with the group armed and hunting down a guest who chose not to remain. 71 min. Video/C 999:3796

Directed by Jiri Weiss. Pavel, a young student living in Prague in 1942, hides a Jewish girl in his apartment building's attic. Amidst the brutality of the occupying German army, love blossoms between the two. He is her only link to the outside world. Then the two are discovered by Pavel's mother, who forces the residents of the apartment building to decide whether Hana can remain. 96 min. DVD X4800; vhs 999:3510

Directors, Jan Kadar, Elmar Klos. In 1942, Tono and his wife are struggling because of his antipathy towards the fascist regime. His brother-in-law, the local fuehrer, chooses Tono to oversee a button shop owned by a sweet, harmless Jewish widow, Mrs. Lautman. When the Jews are ordered deported, the well-meaning Tono decides to shield her from the Nazis. 128 min. DVD 5514; vhs 999:864

Director, Bohdan Slama. Cast: Tatiana Vilhelmova, Pavel Liska, Ana Geislerova. A trio of friends residing in an urban Czech housing project find that happiness can come from the place where you least expect it in this quirky heartfelt drama. As the shadow of the country's largest chemical factory looms large over their bleak industrial suburb, Monika, Tonik, and Dasha hold out hope for a brighter future in another place. While supermarket employee Monika's dreams are built around the hope that she will someday venture to America to be with her boyfriend, George, Tonik secretly pines for Monika, and single mother Dasha finds comfort in the arms of a married man while slowly drifting from reality. As Tonik flees his conservative parents to live on the farm of his eccentric aunt, Dasha's grip on reality finally slips -- leaving her two young children in the care of Tonik and Monika. As things begin to look up for the willing but inexperienced new parents, a lifetime of happiness is finally within their reach. 107 min. DVD 6619

Five works of the master Czech animator showing his use of a wide assortment of techniques expressed through clay, painting, puppets, trick photography and a crazy assortment of objects, food shots, living creatures and cartoons. Dimensions of Dialogue (1986, 12 min.): A confrontation between two heads, one shaped out of vegetables and one shaped out of kitchen utensils, leads to a new head made of chopped-up food. The Last Trick (1964, 12 min.): Svankmajer's first film which fuses animation and live-action as two rival magicians do battle on a small stage. Punch and Judy (1966, 8 min.): An intriguing look at the traditional Punch and Judy story as depicted through two puppets who try to escape from exquisitely decorated coffins. Et cetra (1966, 8 min.): A film in which three individual drawings--a pair of wings, a whip and a house--come to life on their paper to tell their own stories. Jabberwocky (1971, 14 min.): an eerie interpretation of the Lewis Caroll poem with a brilliant rendition of dancing children's toys and clothing inspired by a child's imagination. 60 minutes total running time. 999:2108

Svankmajer, Volume 2. (1965-1990)

Animated shorts by Jan Svankmajer. Six works by the master Czech animator who has fascinated audiences with his bizarre transformations of objects and beings. In Jabberwocky (1971, 14 min.) he interprets Lewis Carroll's verse as a last magical adventure before adulthood. J.S. Bach: Fantasia in G Minor (1965, 9 min.) probes the mystery of the real with the great composer's help. Domestic mayhem is on the menu in Punch and Judy (1966, 10 min.), while Leonardo's Diary (1972, 12 min.) transports the Renaissance polymath to the 20th century. The Ossuary (1970, 10 min.) tours the ultimate bone-yard, a monument to the Black Death. And in The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia (1990, 10 min.) Svankmajer hammers an animated nail in the coffin of Czech communism. 65 minutes total running time. 999:2178

Transport From Paradise (Transport z raje) (1963)

Directed by Zbynek Brynych. Cast: Vlastimil Brodsky, Juraj Herz, Vaclav Lohnisky, Ladislav Pesek, Ladislav Potmesil, Ilja Prachar, Zdenek Stepanek, Walter Taub, Josef Vinklar. Depicts life in the Terezin Ghetto, a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia during World War II, where the Nazi guards permit their Jewish prisoners to roam freely about the camp and conduct their own business and social affairs but the prisoners' main fear is that they may at any moment be shipped off to one of the death camps. Based on the book: Night and hope / by Arnost Lustig. 94 min. vhs 999:2392

Directed by Philip Kaufman. Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Juliette Binoche, Lena Olin. Tomas, a Czech doctor, deeply loves his wife, Tereza, but he only find true understanding with his lover Sabina. Sabina shares his desire for sex without the "heavy" commitment of love. Tomas struggles with the decision of whether to give up his freedom and commit to the love of one woman or to remain faithful to his promiscuous ways. Based on the novel by Milan Kundera. 172 min. DVD 355

Directed by Jan Hrebejk. Cast: Petr Forman, Emilia Vasaryova, Jiri Machacek, Natasa Burger, Jan Triska, Ingrid Timkova, Kristyna Liska-Bokova, Pavel Liska, Zdenek Suchy, Jan Budar, Marek Daniel, Jaroslav Dusek.
A dysfunctional family, including a college professor, his long-estranged son and the lover they both shared are reunited. Two petty pickpockets attempt to rob a black belt in karate. A dimwitted soccer hooligan's wife buys a baby in a pawnshop. These are just a few of the unconnected strangers who find a common connection. 112 min. DVD 7144

Directed by Frantisek Vlácil. Cast: Petr Cepek, Jan Kacer, Vera Galatikova, Josef Somr, Zdenek Kryanek.
A young son of a lord is sent to study with a Brotherhood and is befriended by a fellow member, who in turn leads him on his path to God. When he returns, he finds his father dead, his land barren, and his people with no hope. 97 min. DVD 8559

Directed by Frantisek Vlácil. Cast: Katerina Irmanovova, Karel Smyczek, Gustav Puttjer, Vaclav Irmanov, Hans Peter Reinecke, Karl Gartner, Frantisek Kovarik, Anna Pitasova.
A white carrier pigeon loses its way when it tries to fly home to the Baltic coast, where a young girl anxiously awaits it. Lost, tired, and ill, the bird lands in Prague. It is rescued by an artist and then gradually brought back to health by a small, frail boy. People's lives are changed forever by their encounter with the bird. 67 min. DVD 8535

Director András Szirtes. Featuring Andras Szirtes, Ester Karas, Ottiete Frierre. In this experimental, tongue-in-cheek feature made in the wake of the cataclysmic political changes of Hungary, the "hero" is a writer, who has shut himself off from the rest of the world. He is struggling to write a great novel. Every morning he sits down to write after feeding his cat and letting it out into the streets. The point-of-view of the film is that of the cat as perceived through the its eyes, ears and brain. As the writer reviews the material "shot" by the cat it becomes the basis of his novel. In Hungarian with English subtitles. 82 min. DVD X5523; vhs 999:2061

Directed by Károly Makk; János Xantus. Livia, the beautiful wife of an army officer, is a reporter at the Budapest newspaper where Eva, an outspoken lesbian journalist, comes to work. They embark on an affair that ends in violence for both. In Hungarian with English subtitles. 102 min. 999:2157

Directed by András Kovács. A film centered around the memories and self-justifications of four men awaiting trial for the 1942 massacre of several thousand Jews and Serbs at Novi Sad. 102 min. 999:3511

Director, István Szabó. Cast: Klaus Maria Brandauer, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Gudrun Landgrebe.Colonel Redl is the latest movie version of an oft-filmed tale, based on a true story. Redl (Klaus Maria Brandauer), a poverty-stricken Ukranian of the early 20th century, laboriously works his way into the highest circles of the Imperial Austrian Army. Throughout his upward ascent, Redl is able to keep his homosexuality from becoming public knowledge. Because of his
mastery of several languages, Redl is sent by Emperor Franz Joseph to spy on the Russians. Playing one country against the other, Redl enjoys the sexual and monetary favors from both sides of the espionage spectrum until word of his gayness leaks out and he is blackmailed. To pay off his accusers, Redl is obliged to increase his counter-espionage activities on behalf of the Russians. Finally trapped by his many deceptions, Redl is given the option of killing himself to save his honor. (Hal Erickson, All-Movie Guide) Based on John Osborne's play "A Patriot For Me. " (Grad Svcs XMAC.O81.P3 Modern Authors Collection [Non-circulating material]; Main Stack PR6029.S39.P3 1965; NRLF #: B 4 097 228. 144 min. DVD X4745; vhs 999:607

Directed by by Béla Tarr. Cast: Miklós Szekely, Vali Kerekes, György Cserhalmi, Gyula Pauer, Hédi Temessy. Karrer is in love with a cabaret singer and wants to spend the rest of his life with her, but the only way he can do that is to get rid of her husband by getting him involved in a smuggling scheme. 122 min. DVD 6611

Directed by by Miklós Jancsó. Cast: Mari Torocsik, György Cserhalmi, József Madaras, Lajos Balázsovits. Jancsó, one of the world's great filmmakers, takes the classic myth of Electra who has vowed revenge for the murder of her father, and relocates the action to a desolate Hungarian plain, played out against the rituals of naked girls and galloping horsemen, and then catapults the action into the future. 70 min. DVD 1705

Directed by Béla Tarr. Cast: László Horvath, Laszlone Horvéth, Gábor Kun, Jr., Gaborne Kún, Jánosne Szekeres. The housing shortage in Communist-ruled Hungary forces a young couple to live with the husband's parents in a cramped, one-room apartment. The proximity of too many people in too small a space leads to tireless arguments and hopelessness. 100 min. DVD 4143

Director, István Szabó. Cast: András Bálint, Miklós Gábor, Daniel Erdélyi, Sólyom Kati, Klári Tolnay. A young Hungarian who's father died at the end of World War II tries to discover the truth about his father. He meets a Jewish girl who is trying to forget her past as much as he is trying to remember his. Through this relationship, he realizes he must conquer his ghosts to create his own identity. 89 min. DVD 3556

Directed by Nimród Antal. Cast: Sándor Csányi, Zótan Mucsi, Csaba Pindroch, Sándor Bádar, Zsolt Nagy.
The Budapest subway system, the world's second oldest, is a dark, labyrinthine netherworld as vast and various as the city above it. The beleaguered ticket inspectors or 'controllers', assigned in teams to various sections of the system, have the thankless job of ensuring that no passengers ride without paying. This is their story.
106 min. DVD 9312

Director, Károly Makk. Cast: Lili Darvas, Mari Törocsik, Iván Darvas, Erzsi Orsolay, László Mensáros.
An emotionally precise drama of a bedridden old woman. Her son is in jail and her daughter-in-law makes up stories about his life as a filmmaker in America, forging letters from him, which his mother believes as she awaits his return. 84 min. DVD X2535

Directed by Miklós Jancsó. Cast: Bela Barsi, Jurij Bodovszkij, Viktor Csekmarev, Sandor Csikos, Mari Csomos, Janos Görbe.
In the final days of WWII, a seventeen-year-old boy wanders the countryside. He is captured by Soviet troops, then released, then captured once more--after he has donned a German uniform for warmth--and imprisoned at a remote barracks, where he strikes up an unlikely friendship with a young Russian soldier. His attempts to return home form the crux of this lyrical film, which displays all of the director's consistent themes: the psychological presence of landscape, the randomness of violence, the arbitrary nature of power. 97 min. DVD X7204

Directed by Márta Mészáros. Cast: Berek Kati, Vigh Gyö77ngyver, Lázsló Szabó, Peter Fried.
Kati wants a child but her married lover won't oblige - so it falls to Anna her newfound friend, to help her have a child and learn to love and survive. 89 min. DVD 8100

Directed by Béla Tarr. Cast: Szabó András, Fodor Jolan, Donko Imre, Balla István, Jánossy Ferenc, Naton László, Vass Imre. Nicknamed "Beethoven," Andras is a violinist who has been kicked out of music school in Debrecen and now makes his living as a disc jockey. A woman gives birth to his illegitimate child and he loses his job at a mental hospital. He marries another woman but their lack of income provokes a crisis in the relationship. One option that the couple has is to move into a flat and live with her parents. Will he, his wife asks, be a permanent outsider despite his talents? Eventually, she gets fed up with Andras and sleeps with his brother. 122 min. DVD 4141

Directed by Béla Tarr. Cast: Barna, Nagy Adrian, Szabó Istvánne, Tóth Tibor, Varga László. A relentlessly realistic portrait of a young working-class Hungarian couple suffering the everyday stresses of marriage. Beginning with a terrible argument between husband and wife, we examine the minute details of these two peoples' lives in order to see what brought them to this moment. 76 min. DVD 4142

Directed by Miklós Jancsó. Cast: Tibor Molnár, András Kozák, Józef Madaras. This film about the absurdity and arbitrariness of war is set in Central Russia during the Civil War of 1918. It details the battles between the Red soldiers of Russia, aided by Hungarian Communists, and the counter-revolutionary Whites in the hills along the Volga River. Banned in Russian for many years. 90 min. DVD 5351

Directed by Miklós Jancsó. Cast: Andrea Ajtony, Andras Ambrus, Lajos Balazsovits, Andras Balint.
Recounts the story of a peasant uprising on an estate in Hungary in the 1890s. The pacifistic peasants, who seek some basic rights, are in a standoff with local authorities and later, the army. Everyone takes a break in the confrontation in order to celebrate a festival. Afterwards, the peasants resume their strike and meet with a tragic end. 81 min. DVD X7202

Directed by Jiri Weiss. Cast: Ivan Mistrik, Dana Smutna, Jirina Sejbalová, Eva Mrazova, Karla Chadimová, Frantisek Smolk, Blanka Bohdanová, Jiri Kodet. Pavel, a young student living in Prague in 1942, hides a Jewish girl Hana in his apartment building's attic. He is her only link to the outside world and their growing trust develops into love, until the two are discovered by Pavel's mother who forces the residents of the building to decide whether Hana can remain. 96 min. 999:3510

Directed by Miklós Jancsó. Cast: András Kozák, Zoltán Latinovits, Mari Törocsik, Andrea Drahota, József Madaras, István Bujtor.
István Cserzi is an ex-Red Army soldier fleeing from the nationalist Royal Gendarme. If found, they will execute him on the spot. He takes refuge on a farm with two sympathetic women who just happen to be slowly poisoning their relatives in hopes of inheriting the farm. 73 min. DVD X7203

Director, István Szabó. Cast: Lucyna Winnicka, Rita Bekes, Andras Balint, Agi Mészáros, Peter Muller. Elderly residents of an old apartment house in Hungary which is about to be destroyed recall their lives, dreams and nightmares as they reminisce about their traumatic memories of living through World War II. 97 min. DVD 3553

Director, György Pálfi. Cast: Czene Csaba, Trócsányi Gergö, Marc Bischoff. Gyorgy Palfi's grotesque tale of three generations of men, including an obese speed eater, an embalmer of gigantic cats, and a man who shoots fire out of his penis. Based on the works of Parti Nagy Lajos. 91 min. DVD X3781

Director, Béla Tarr. Cast: Lars Rudolph, Peter Fitz, Hanna Schygulla, Ferenc Kallai, Janos Derzsi. A circus arrives in a small village in Hungary. Instead of exotic animals and acrobats, it features jars of medical anomalies. Tensions mount in the village as a shadowy figure provokes violence among its inhabitants, inciting a slow paced decent into communal madness. 145 min. DVD 6551

Director, János Szász. Cast: Lajos Kovács, Diana Vacaru, Alekszander Porohovscikov, Péter Haumann, Sándor Gáspár, Sándor Varga.
A stark update of the Büchner play of oppression and dehumanization. Set in modern-day Budapest, the wretched Woyzeck ekes out a meager and degrading existence, and snaps when his wife begins an affair. 93 min. Based on the play by Georg Büchner. DVD X4854

And the Violins Stopped Playing: A True Story (I skrzypce przestaly grac)(1988)

Director, Alexander Ramati. Horst Buchholz, Maya Ramati, Piotr Polk, Didi Ramati, Kasia Siwak. Depicts a small group of gypsies escaping the German army during World War II. The group is fleeing south from Poland through Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Through all their travails there is romance with the leaders adolescent daughter and a boy from another gypsy family. The film is unique in that the hunted are not Jews or prisoners of war, but gypsies. 128 min. DVD (PAL, region 5) DVD 7339

Director, Andrzej Wajda. Cast: Zbigniew Cybulski, Eva Krzyzewska, Waclaw Zastrzezynski, Adam Pawlikowski, Bogumil Kobiela, Jan Ciecierski, Stanislaw Milski, Artur Mlodnicki, Halina Kwiatkowska. Rural Poland, on the last days of World War II. The Nazis have surrendered, and the Red Army has criss-crossed the country. With the battle against the Nazis over, a new struggle emerges against the communists. A group of Polish patriots boldy set out to assassinate a mid-level communist-party functionary. Macick is the trigger man, but when he spots a blonde behind the bar, his priorities change. The final film in what has come to be known as the director's 'war trilogy'. Special features: audio commentary by film scholar Annette Insdorf; Andrzej Wajda: on Ashes & diamonds (video interview with the director, 35 min.); newsreel footage on the making of the film; production photos, publicity stills, and posters. 105 min. DVD 2079; vhs 999:1052

Director Andrzej Munk. Cast: Bogumił Kobiela, Krystyna Karkowska, Barbara Lass, Roman Polański, Barbara Połomska, Edward Dziewoński, Maria Ciesielska, Barbara Kwiatkowska, Helena Dabrowska, Henryk Bąk.
Jan, a middle-aged, nondescript everyman, desperately wants to remain in prison, though the state says it is time for him to go. As he tells his life story of hard luck and misfortune, covering the years from 1930 to 1950, it is clear that he has been so busy trying to please others that he never noticed the enormous changes happening around him. 108 min. DVD 9885

Director Krzysztof Kieślowski. Cast: Bogusław Linda, Bogusława Pawelec, Tadeusz Łomnicki, Marzena Trybala, Monika Goździk. Blind chance" depicts three potential lifestories of one and the same man. First, he is a party activist, then a dissident, and finally a physician fulfilling his humanitarian duties. Each incarnation is a result of blind chance, just as the life of every man may take a different course depending on whether he turns to the right or to the left after leaving the hotel. The film tries to establish the relationship between one's freedom and duty. Its basic message is that man should follow certain principles in his life regardless of the circumstances. 122 min. DVD 4183; vhs 999:1362

Director, Aleksander Ford. A tragedy about an old tailor who tries to save his daughters and others in the Warsaw ghetto. Culminates with the uprising of 1943, when Jews, supported by the Polish underground, take up arms and die fighting. 122 min. DVD 6008

Director Krzysztof Kieślowski. Cast: Jerzy Stuhr, Malgorzata Zabkowska, Krzysztof Zanussi, Ewa Pokas, Stefan Czyzewski, Jerzy Nowak, Tadeusz Bradecki, Marek Litewka. Filip, a young factory worker, buys an amateur movie camera so he can take pictures of his newborn daughter. But, when a clumsy documentary he made for work wins a prize at a local festival, Filip goes camera crazy. He embarks upon a new career as a filmmaker and begins to photograph anything that moves...including things the authorities would rather not have exposed. 108 min. DVD 4182; vhs 999:1329

Directed by Andrzej Wajda. Cast: Teresa Iżewska, Tadeusz Janczar, Wienczysław Gliński, Tadeusz Gwiazdowski, Stanisław Mikulski, Emil Karewicz, Władysław Sheybal, Teresa Berezowska. Begins on the 56th day of the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis during World War II. A ragtag group of trained and untrained Resistance fighters hold on to the front line. They try to live a relatively normal life, and even find time to play the piano. They achieve small victories, but must retreat into the sewers in order to survive. 96 min. DVD X5331; DVD 2080; DVD 2080; vhs 999:1051

Directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz. Cast: Jószef Nowak, Stanislaw Milski, Zbigniew Skowronski, Teresa Szmigielówna.
A peasant's son in Poland becomes politically radicalized, after moving to the big city to work in a cellulose factory.
120 min. DVD 9913

Directed by Piotr Uklanski. Cast: Boguslaw Linda, Karel Roden, Katarzyna Figura, Val Kilmer.
A stranger rides into a small town carrying the corpse of a wanted man. Hoping to collect a reward, the mysterious outsider loses the dead man--and potential bounty money--in a gambling game with the town's drunken sheriff. Later, despite the fact that he lost the game, the stranger vows to keep the corpse at all costs. The first Polish Western. 94 min. DVD X3308

Dekalog. 1-2. Segments 1 and 2 of ten films loosely based on the Ten Commandments. Dekalog 1: A deeply moving story of the trust and affection between a father and his son. Dekalog 2: A lonely elderly hospital consultant is asked by a patient's wife to predict her husband's chances of survival as she is pregnant by another man. DVD 231; Dekalog 1-2 also on vhs 999:1765

Delog 3-5. Dekalog 3: On a dark wintry Christmas Eve, Janusz is persuaded by his former lover to drive her all over Warsaw in search of her missing husband. Dekalog 4: Anka is a young drama student who has a close relationship with her widowed father. When he goes on a trip abroad Anka finds a letter revealing that he may not be her real father. Dekalog 5: A young man brutally murders a taxi driver and is in turn hanged by the state. Graphically filmed in harrowing detail. DVD 231; also on vhs 999:176

Dekalog 6-8. Dekalog 6: A young man falls in love with an older woman who lives in the flats across the courtyard. He watches her succession of lovers until she confronts him with a sexual invition. Dekalog 7: Six year old Ania is the object of a struggle for possession between her mother and her grandmother. Dekalog 8: Zofia, a university professor of ethics, is suddenly faced with her own past when a visiting Jewish-American researcher reveals that, as a child during the holocaust, she was refused sanctuary by a Catholic couple. DVD 231;
also on vhs 999:1767

Dekalog. 9-10. Dekalog 9: Roman is told that he can no longer have children, and that he is impotent. He becomes convinced that his wife has a lover, an obsession which nearly drives him over the edge. Dekalog 10: A dark comedy in which two estranged brothers are reunited at their father's funeral and inherit his valuable stamp collection. DVD 231; also on vhs 999:1768

La Double Vie de Véronique (The Double Life of Veronique)(France/Poland/Norway, 1991)

Directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski. Cast: Irene Jacob, Philippe Volter, Sandrine Dumas, Halina Gryglaszewska, Władysław Kowalski, Jerzy Gudejko, Claude Duneton.
Weronika is a Polish choir soprano, and her double, Veronique, is a French music teacher. Though they are unknown to each other, the two women share an enigmatic, purely emotional bond. The two were born on the same day and each senses that somewhere there exists another person with whom their lives are intertwined. Special features: (Disc one:) Audio commentary by film scholar Annette Insdorf; three short documentary films by Kieślowski: "Factory" (1970), "Hospital" (1976), and "Railway station" (1980); "The musicians" (1958), a short film by Kieślowski's teacher Kazimierz Karabasz; U.S. ending. -- (Disc two): "Kieślowski - dialogue" (1991), a documentary; rare behind-the-scenes footage; "1966-1988: Kieślowski, Polish filmmaker", a 2005 documentary; new video interviews with cinematographer Slawomir Idziak and composer Zbigniew Preisner; a 2005 interview with actress Ir`ene Jacob; a booklet featuring new essays by Jonathan Romney, Slavoj Zizek, and Peter Cowie, and excerpts from "Kieślowski on Kieślowski." 97 min. DVD 6605

Director, Michal Waszynski. Years after their parents had made a pledge that they would marry, a young couple meet and fall in love. The father of the young man had long before perished and the young woman's father, forgetting his vow, keeps the two apart. The film concerns unfullfilled love, broken promises, and the supernatural, as the persona of the youth enters his beloved's body and possesses her. Based upon the play by Shalom Anski. (UCB Main PJ5129.R3 D82; PJ5129.R3 A27 1992; PJ5129.R3 D821 1974)120 min. vhs 999:843

Directed by Jerzy Hoffman. Cast: Daniel Olbrychski, Malgorzata Braunek, Tadeusz Łomnicki, Kazimierz Wichniarz, Władysław Hancza.
The Swedish army's 17th century invasion of Poland is intertwined with the love story of Andrzej and Olenka. Based on the novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz, much of this exciting and romantic film was shot in authentic, ancient Polish castles. 290 min. DVD 6436

Directed by Andrzej Munk. Cast: Edward Dziewonski, Kazimierz Opalinski, Leon Niemszyk, Roman Klosowski. Based on a pair of World War II stories by J.S. Stawinski, the film unfolds in two parts. The first tells the tale of a small-time black marketeer, who cares little about the war but unwittingly becomes involved with the Polish Resistance. In the second story, Polish military prisoners battle boredom and despair in a prison camp. One inmate makes a brave if foolhardy attempt to escape, giving hope to the other prisoners. 80 min. DVD X4305; vhs 999:2257

Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski. Cast: Vincent Gallo, Emmanuelle Seigner, Zach Cohen.
Tells the story of a man captured in the desert by American forces, who finds himself transported to a nameless European country. He manages to escape into the vast frozen woodland, a world away from the desert home he knew. Forced into extreme survival mode, he must kill anyone who strays into his path. 85 min. DVD X6897

Directed by Andrzej Wajda. Cast: Andrzej Łapicki, Daniel Olbrychski, Beata Tyszkiewicz, Elzbieta Czyzewska, Bogumil Kobiela, Malgorzta Potocka.
Inspired by the death of Polish actor Zbigniew Cybulski, this film focuses on the behind-the-scenes lives of a director and his actors when they are disrupted by the mysterious murder of their leading man. 94 min. DVD 7405

Directed by Andrzej Wajda. Cast: Tadeusz Łomnicki, Urszula Modrzynska, Tadeusz Janczar, Janusz Paluszkiewicz, Ryszard Kotas, Roman Polanski. The story of a cocky Polish youth who decides to fight the Nazis after he falls for a pretty resistance leader. As he and his friends help excapees during the Warsaw ghetto uprising, the innocence of a generation is lost under the grueling conditions of war. Special features: interview, Andrzej Wajda: on becoming a filmmaker (2003 ; ca. 34 min.); short film Ceramika Iłzecka = Ceramics from Ilza (1951; b&w; ca. 10 min.) ; stills galleries. In booklet: essay by film scholar Ewa Mazierska. 85 min. DVD X5330; vhs 999:1050

Directed by Janusz Kidawa. Cast: Mieczysław Hryniewicz, Jarosław Kopaczewski, Wieslaw Wójcik, Tadeusz Madeja.
Three construction workers live together in a tiny private apartment while building a new factory. Their foreman, Lolecki, is supposed to be supervising the production line, but instead he abuses his position by neglecting his responsibilities. 86 min. DVD X4183

Directed by Barbara Sass. Cast: Dorota Stalinska, Teresa Budzisz-Krzyzanowska, Michal Bajor, Marek Lewandowski, Olaf Lubaszenko.
Once a major star of the stage, aging actress Ewa now wiles away her time drinking in her dreary apartment. She dreams of making a comeback but her drinking, self-centered behavior, and abrasive personality prevent her from getting a job. 108 min. DVD 7261

Directed by Jan Łomnicki. Cast: Ryszarda Hanin, Joanna Friedman, Marzena Trybała, Marta Klubowicz.
Set in 1942, the film opens with an Aryan washerwoman arriving in the Warsaw ghetto. The Jewish woman she worked for before the war hires her to take her young daughter to the countryside until the war is over. 87 min. DVD X6194

Directed by Andrzej Wajda. Cast: Andrzej Chyra, Maja Ostaszewska, Artur Zmijewski, Jan Englert, Danuta Stenka, Magdalena Cielecka, Agnieszka Glinska, Maja Komorowska, Sergey Garmash.
Dramatization of the massacre of 20,000 people (interned Polish officers as well as civilians accused of treason by the occupying Soviet forces) by the Soviet secret police at Katyn' in the spring of 1940, and the cover-up that followed. Follows the fictional stories of four families, separated from one another in the confusion of September 1939, when the Soviets and Germans invaded Poland, through the Soviet occupation in 1945 when the truth of the massacre gets suppressed. Based on the novel "Post mortem" by Andrzej Mularczyk.
Special features: Interview with director Andrejz Wajda ; "Katyn: 60 days on the set: making-of featurette," Polish premiere: interviews and reactions ; photo gallery.
121 min. DVD X3775

Directed by Juliusz Machulski. Cast: Jacek Chmielnik, Jerzy Stuhr, Katarzyna Figura, Grzegorz Herominski, Joachim Lamza, Maciej Kozłowski, Jan Machulski, Leonard Pietraszak, Witold Pyrkosz, Liza Machulska. The story follows a young scientist in the contemporary world, who actually came from the world of dwarves, thanks to a magic potion, held by the Big Eater, ruler of the dwarves. Based on Juliusz Machulski's novel Szuflandia. 104 min. DVD 6249

Director, Roman Polanski. Cast: Leon Niemczyk, Jolanta Umecka, Zygmunt Malanowicz. A middle-aged journalist and his wife invite a footloose young hitch-hiker aboard their sailboat for a Sunday outing in the Polish lake district. The men proceed to flaunt their virility before the woman, revealing a cynical sadism on the part of the husband and a growing resentment in the knife-wielding youth. Polanski's first feature film, an astute spare analysis of personality conflicts. DVD 1935

Directed by Andrzej Wajda. Cast: Wojtek Pszoniak, Ewa Dalkowska. Tells the true story of Janusz Korczak, a renowned physician and author, who ran a home for Jewish orphans in 1930's Warsaw. Urged by friends to flee the country, he chose to remain with his orphans, but as the war continued it became plain that, depite Krczak's tireless efforts, the children would be deported to concentration camps. 118 min. 999:3652

Director, Andrzej Wajda. Cast: Daniel Olbrychski, Stanislawa Celinska, Aleksander Bardini, Tadeusz Janczar, Zygmunt Malanowicz.
A love story between two Poles at the end of World War II portraying the destructive effects of war on the human spirit. DVD 7406

Directed by Wanda Jakubowska. Cast: Wanda Bartowna, Hugette Faget, Tatiana Gorecka, Edward Dziewonski. Martha Weiss, a Jew, is sent to Auschwitz concentration camp with her family. On the first day of their arrival Martha is, by a coincidence, chosen as an interpreter, but her entire family is killed. The horrible lives of female inmates of Auschwitz are chronicled in this accurate recreation of actual events. Based on the true experiences of film director, Wanda Jakubowska, as a prisoner of a German concentration camp. Partially shot on location at Auschwitz concentration camp. 105 min. DVD X4655

Mazierska, Ewa. "Double Memory: The Holocaust in Polish Film." In: Holocaust and the moving image : representations in film and television since 1933 / edited by Toby
London ; New York : Wallflower, 2005. (Main (Gardner) Stacks PN1995.9.H53 H65 2005)

Director, screenwriter, Agnieszka Holland. Cast: Maria Chwalibóg, Bogusław Linda, Paweł Witczak. Irena, a postal worker and single mother living with her son in a drab apartment in Oroclaw, has a lot of problems: her son gets in trouble at school and her work supervisor wants to give her postal route to someone else. After stealing some money she should be delivering, she places her son in a boarding school and buys a used car to make a dash for West Berlin hoping to escape her home, her life and her poverty. 94 min. 999:3509

Director, Andrzej Wajda. Cast: Jerzy Pichelski, Adam Pawlikowski, Jerzy Moes, Mieczysław Łoza, Bożena Kurowska.
Tells the history of the Polish cavalry in its fight against the Germans in World War II as symbolized by an off-white horse that passes to various people in the military until it breaks its leg and is shot. 89 min. DVD 7493

Directed by Andrzej Wajda. Cast: Jerzy Radziwiółwicz, Krystyna Janda, Marian Opania, Wiesáłwa Kosmalska, Irena Bynska, Bogusław Linda ; with Lech Walesa, Anna Walentynowicz. The Polish Solidarity strike takes place at the Gdansk shipyard in the summer of 1980. When an alcoholic TV journalist is ordered to smear one of Solidarity's key figures, coined the "man of iron," instead of finding evidence against him he finds himself re-politicized and in support of the independent trade-union movement. 140 min. DVD X4369; vhs 999:2321

Directed by Andrzej Munk. Cast: Kazimierz Opaliński, Zygmunt Maciejewski, Zygmunt Zintel, Zygmunt Listkiewicz, Roman Kłosowski.
An engine driver is found slumped across train tracks in the middle of the night. Characters who knew the man investigate his death, each relating their own interpretation. This classic of anti-Stalinism film examines the problems of 1950s Poland.
86 min. DVD X6295

Director, Krysztof Kieślowski. Cast: Grazyna Szapolowska, Krzysztof Krzeminski, Jerzy Radziwilowicz, Aleksander Bardini. Antek was one of the few lawyers willing to take on political cases in a period of enforced martial law. Upon his unexpected death, Antek's wife Ulla struggles to cope with her grief. She eventually takes on the task of finding another attorney to take over one of her husband's cases to defend a man jailed for leading a labor strike. After connecting a colleague from Antek's past with the prisoner's wife, a series of mysterious signals make Ulla believe that Antek's ghost is warning her about the man choosen to replace him. 103 min. DVD 4185

Pawel Lozinski's film focuses not on the filmmakers, but on those for whom movies are made -- the audience. Through interviews with children and the elderly, Lozinski attempts to evoke the magic and power of Polish cinema through collective memory. 61 min. Video/C MM445

Directed by Jan Jakub Kolski. Cast: Krzysztof Majchrzak, Adam Ferency, Krzysztof Globisz, Gra#380;yna Błęcka-Kolska, Grzegorz Damięcki. An adaptation of Witold Gombrowicz novel set in 1943 in occupied Poland. Two older men visiting a country estate become obsessed with the lives of their host's adolescent daughter and the son of the local bailiff. As they try to ignite a love affair between the two young people their personalities become submerged and they eventually become the victims of their own manipulations. 152 min. DVD 6294

Directed by Andrzej Wajda. Cast: Daniel Olbrychski, Wojciech Pszoniak, Andrzej Seweryn. Interpretation of a classic epic depicting the changes in values ushered in by the industrial revolution. Three friends build a factory in Lodz but are sidetracked by local politics and a dangerous love affair. 138 min. DVD 7408

Directed by Andrzej Wajda. Cast: Roman Polanski, Janusz Gajos, Andrzej Seweryn, Katarzyna Figura, Daniel Olbrychski, Agata Buzek, Rafa Krolikowski. Czesnik and Rejent are the combative scions of two prominent families fallen on hard times, both of whom have the poor fortune of having homes which share a common courtyard. Czesnik's niece Klara has fallen in love with Waclaw, Rejent's son. However, Rejent has promised his son to Podstolina, a beautiful widow who has attracted Czesnik's eye. Meanwhile, Papkin, a former nobleman short on both cash and courage, hopes to wed Klara, but as a neutral party in the feud between the two clans, Klara thinks she might be able to use Papkin for her own purposes to bring her together with Waclaw. 101 min. DVD 6248

Directed by Andrzej Wajda. Cast: Kowalski, Irena Netto, Beata Tyszkiewicz, Jan Ibel.
This Polish drama presents a psychological study of Jakub Gold, a Polish Jew imprisoned for killing a schoolmate in a brawl. He is released from prison at the outbreak of World War II, only to be confined to the Warsaw ghetto. Escaping the ghetto, he is still confined--by the fear of being Jewish in a world hostile to Jews. 115 min. DVD 9886

Directed by Juliusz Machulski. Cast: Jerzy Stuhr, Olgierd Ukaszewicz, Bozena Stryjkona, Boguslawa Pawelec, Hanna Stankowna. A science fiction film about the year 2044. Two men, voluntarily hibernated in 1991, are awakened 53 years later to learn that males don't exist anymore. A nuclear war destroyed everything, including men. Women are ruling from the underground. Facing harsh treatment from their female guards, these two men are determined to save themselves and reestablish the male population. 120 min. DVD 6247

Director, Krysztof Kieślowski. Three strangers in different worlds within a decrepit modern Warsaw unknowingly share a parallel destiny in this movie that deals with an ethical puzzle pitting random coincidence against irresistible fate. The movie employs an arsenal of cinematic imagination to create a portrait of savagery and redemption in life. 81 min. DVD 4186

Rashkin, Esther. "Unmourned Dead, Filtered History, and the Screening of Anti-Semitism in Kies'lowski's A Short Film About Killing." American Imago: Psychoanalysis and The Humanities, vol. 66, no. 3, pp. 311-342, Fall 2009

Director, Krysztof Kieślowski. Cast: Grazyna Szapolowska, Olaf Lubaszenko, Stefania Iwinska. Focuses on the lives of two human beings who have been deprived of the gift of love. A young postal worker falls in love with an older woman who lives in the flat opposite his. She attempts to prove to him that "love" is nothing more than a set of biological impulses, as a reaction to his voyeurism, and draws him into a game in which neither is the winner. 83 min. DVD 4187

Director Andrej Wajda. Cast: Olivera Markovic, Ljuba Tadic, Miodrag Lazarevic, Bojan Stupica.
Shakespearean tragedy collides with film noir in a remote Russian village in this dark fable about the cruel machinations of Katarina, a ruthless woman who will let nothing threaten her affair with a mysterious drifter. In Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles. 93 min. DVD X3504; vhs 999:3234

Director, Andrzej Jakimowski. Cast: Zbigniew Zamachowski, Malgorzata Foremniak, Andrzej Chyra, Olga Proszynska, Rafal Guzniczak, Andrzej Mastalerz.
The story of a spirited ten-year-old girl who has run away from her proudly affluent parents in town and finds grudging refuge with the slightly slovenly caretaker of an abandoned farm, an ex-teacher. 92 min. DVD 9914

Directed by Volker Schlöndorff. Cast: Katharina Thalbach, Andrzej Chyra, Dominque Horwitz, Andrzej Grabowski, Dariusz Kowalski, Ewa Telega, Wojciech Pszoniak.
Based on historical events, tells the story of Agnieszka Kowalska. An illiterate single mother, Agnieszka is a Socialist "heroine of labor" for working long hours as a shipyard welder... until her superiors deny compensation to the widows of 21 workers killed in an industrial disaster. Risking her job, her life, and the love of her son to defy the bureacracy, Agnieszka inspires the largest labor strike in world history... and becomes a national hero. 108 min. DVD X3784

Director, Krysztof Kieślowski. Cast: Zbigniew Zamachowski, Julie Delpy. The mysterious tale of a Polish man whose life disintegrates when his beautiful French wife of six months deserts him. Forced to begin anew, he rebuilds his life, only to plan a dangerous scheme of vengeance against her! 92 min. DVD 1749; vhs 999:2280

Directed by Ryszard Brylski. Cast: Katarzyna Figura, Natalia Rybicka, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Marek Kasprzyk.
Halina, a young, hard-working widow, tramps around a small Polish border town in search of the father of her grandchild. Her impaired teenage daughter refuses to name the father, which causes a problem with the upcoming baptism. 72 min. DVD 9912

Directed by Jan Kidawa-Blonski. Cast: Katarzyna Figura, Natalia Rybicka, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Marek Kasprzyk.
A tense tale of a devastating computer virus that threatens to plunge all of Warsaw into complete chaos. The computer networks of a major bank and a high profile hospital have been compromised, and now in order to defeat the virus authorities have enlisted the aid of a talented young hacker named Michal. Should Michal fail in his daring cyber-mission, the institutions he's attempting to protect are sure to be completely crippled by the virus. Now Michal has noticed something familiar in the code - could it be that his scheming brother Stefan is the cyber-terrorist responsible for this beautifully complex bug? 97 min. DVD X1119

Directed by Jerzy Hoffman. Cast: Izabella Scorupco, Michal Zebrowski, Aleksander Domogarow, Krzysztof Kowalewski.
This lavish historical epic was the most expensive Polish film ever made. Based on the novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz, it is set in 17th century Poland when Poland was the largest, the most democratic, and the most tolerant country in Europe. However, the tragic civil war brought about the gradual decline of the once glorious republic. 205 min. DVD 6435

Directed by Andrzej Wajda. Cast: Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Ewa Dalkowska, Andrzej Seweryn, Krystyna Janda.
Tells the story of Jerzy, a famous journalist just returned from as assignment abroad. Despite his success, his wife leaves him for an obnoxious young writer and refuses to explain why. Against everyone's advice, Jerzy fights the divorce and searches in vain for an explanation for why she left. At the same time, Jerzy finds that he has fallen out of official favor, for reasons no less mysterious. 111 min. 999:3787

A Year of the Quiet Sun (Rok Spokojnego slonca) (Poland / West Germany / USA, 1984)

Directed by Krzysztof Zanussi. Cast: Maja Komorowska, Scott Wilson, Hanna Skarzanka, Ewa Dakowska. In the wake of World War II, an American soldier (Norman) forms a delicate friendship with a war widow (Emilia) amid the devastation of 1946 Poland. In spite of the language barrier, painful memories of their past, and the many cultural divisions that separate them, Norman and Emilia dare to steal a moment of happiness together. 109 min. DVD 6242

Directed by Andrzej Wajda. Cast: Daniel Olbrychski, Anna Seniuk, Maja Komorowska, Stanisawa Celinska, Krystyna Zachwatowicz, Christine Pascal, Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Zofia Jaroszewska, Tadeusz Biawoszczynski. After 15 years away, Wiktor returns to Wilko, where he spent an important part of his life, and realizes he has had an impact on the town and its people. His presence in turn forces the young girls of Wilko to evaluate their lives and failures. 87 min. DVD 6231

Cum mi-am petrecut sfarsitul lumii (The way I spent the end of the world) (Romania / France, 2006)

Directed by Catalin Mitulescu. Cast: Dorotheea Petre, Timotei Duma, Mircea Diaconu, Jean Constantin, Carmen Ungureanu. . Bucharest 1989, the last year of Ceausescu's dictatorship. Eva, 17, lives with her parents and her 7 year-old brother Lalalilu. One day at school, Eva and her boyfriend accidentally break a bust of Ceausescu. They are forced to confess their crime before a disciplinary committee. Eva is expelled from school and transferred to a reformatory establishment. There she meets Andrei and decides to escape Romania with him. Lalalilu is more and more convinced that Ceausescu is the main reason for Eva's decision to leave. So, with his friends from school, he devises a plan to kill the dictator. 106 min. DVD 7914

Directed by Lucian Pintilie. Cast: Costel Cascaval, Dorina Chiriac, Gheorghe Visu, Victor Rebengiuc, Razvan Vasilescu.
Mitou raises pigs in Romania, but he's due to begin two years of military service the next day. Clad in hot pants, waitress Norica matches Mitou in knocking back shots of vodka. Although Norica is engaged to marry Gili, owner of the rundown roadside sausage stand where she works, she accompanies Mitou to his spare apartment. Resentful of his family and obsessed with Norica, the stubborn, headstrong Mitou is uncompromising and ready for a final showdown with authority figures. 95 min. DVD X5039

Lambevski, Sasho.
"Feeling the paranoiac, the schizo and the depressive: a semiotic analysis of Macedonia's emotional architecture in Before the Rain." Social Semiotics, 13, no. 2 (Aug, 2003): 161-78
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Directed by Goran Paskaljevic. Cast: Aco Dukovski, Vassilis Katsoufis, Dejan Vrazalic, Kadri Yurdatap. In this dark comedy set in war-torn Yugoslavia, the lives of various citizens -- a cab driver, friends in a gym, a girl on a bus, a performance artist and more -- intersect during one unpredictiable night in Belgrade. 102 min. 999:2523

Director, Emir Kusturica. Cast: Slavko Stimac, Ljiljana Blagojevic, Slobodan Aligrudic. A beautifully modulated tale of a young man's entry into adulthood, his loss of virginity in the company of a B-movie stripper and prostitute. Set in the early 60s, Kusturica grafts the pathos of the Eastern European village movie into a complex tale of intrusive cultures, when Western influences such as fashion and rock and roll and the promise of European socialism threatened to roll over traditional customs, practiced rituals and Tito's political reign. Special DVD features: interview with director, Emir Kusturica. 106 min. DVD X3455; vhs 999:2972

Director, Andrea Staka. Cast: Mirjana Karanovcic, Marija Skarcic, Ljubica Jovic. Tells the story of two Balkan refugees. Reza owns a restaurant and has lived in Switzerland for 25 years. Ana is a Bosnian who breezes into Reza's life and injects both joy and discontent.
81 min min. DVD 8071

Directed by Dusan Makavejev. Cast: Svetozar Cvetkovic, Anita Mancic, Alexandra Rohmig, Petar Bozovic, Andreas Lucius. This tragicomedy examines the collapse of the Soviet Union through the goofball misadventures of one Russian soldier stranded in East Berlin after the fall of the wall. Amidst the sea of changes in Eastern Europe, the film follows the absurdly optimistic Major Victor Borisovich after his entire army unit deserts. 83 min. 999:2983

Director, Jasmila Zbanic. Cast: Mirjana Karanovic, Luna Mijovic, Leon Lucev, Kenan Catic, Jasna Ornela Barry, Dejan Acimivuc, Bogdan Diklic, Emir Hadzihafizbegovic.
A touching film about a single mother who lives with her 12-year-old daughter in the Grbavica district of Sarajevo, a neighborhood once used as an internment camp during the Yugoslav wars. 109 min. DVD 8136

Director, Jovan Acin. Cast: Gala Videnovic, Relja Basic. Comedy about four teenage males growing up in the 1950's in Belgrade who love American movies, jazz and a girl named Esther. The film cuts between the early fifties and the present as they are seen recalling their youth when they are reunited at Esther's funeral. 109 min. DVD X4291; vhs 999:1954

Director, Dusan Makavejev. Cast: Dragoljub Aleksic, Ana Miloslajevic, Vera Jovanovic, Bratoljub Gligorejevi. Film is a collage combining the first Serbian talkie, a melodrama of lecherous lust vs. true love, with interviews some twenty years later with those who made the film and with wartime newsreels. 78 min. DVD X2271; vhs 999:977

Director, Dusan Makavejev. Cast: Eva Ras, Ruzica Sokic, Slobodan Aligrudic, Midoray Andric, Dr. Aleksandar Kostic, Dr. Zivojin Aleksic. Love affair is the story of a young switchboard operator, Isabella, who falls in love with Ahmed, a sanitary worker. She lives with him but their living arrangement and her pregnancy leave her feeling trapped. Her boyfriend, one night after becoming drunk, accidentally pushes her down a well, killing her. In Serbian with Engish subtitles. 70 min. DVD X2270; vhs 999:868

Director, Dusan Makavejev. Cast: Milena Dravic, Janez Vrhovec, Eva Ras, Stole Arandjelovic, Boris Dvornik. A middle-aged engineer comes to a factory to install machinery and falls in love with a young local girl. Presents a harsh look at love and life in a small industrial town set in eastern Serbia. Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles. 80 min. DVD X2272; vhs 999:952

Written and directed by Dusan Makavejev. Cast: Susan Anspach, Erland Josephson, Per Oscarsson, John Zacharias. Marilyn Jordan is a repressed wife trapped in an unloving household who is slowly slipping into quiet madness. Through a mix-up at the airport, she loses track of her husband and misses their flight. She falls in with a bizarre band of Yugoslavian immigrants celebrating the New Year and takes a charismatic young zoo keeper named Montenegro for a lover. 92 min. DVD 724

Directed by Dusan Makavejev. Cast: Camilla Soeberg, Alfred Molina, Simon Callow, Lindsay Duncan, Gabrielle Anwar, Eric Stoltz. Set in a Post WWI Eastern European village, this is the story of revolutionaries trying to change the political system. Inspector Avanti is in charge of securing the village for a visit by the king but seductions, misguided faith and severe incompetence bungle his mission as the whole town gets into the act. 97 min. 999:2980

Director, Danis Tanovic. Set during the height of the Bosnian War in 1993, a group of Bosnian soldiers are advancing on Serb territory under the cover of a foggy night. At daybreak, the fog lifts, and the Serbs open fire. Soon there is only one Bosnian survivor because he was able to dive into a trench in no man's land. He then watches as two Serbian soldiers use the body of a fallen Bosnian to bait a land mine. He fires on them, killing one, and taking the second hostage. Now both are alone and equally armed, so they are forced to share a wary trust as they try to attract help from either side. 97 min. DVD 1149

Directed by Srdjan Dragojevic. Two boyhood friends, one a Muslim, the other a Serb, find themselves on opposing sides in the war in Bosnia. Now one of them lies in a hospital badly injured thinking of their friendship tattered and in ruins as he recalls the events that brought him there. In Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles. 125 min. DVD 461

Directed by Damjan Kozole. Cast: Peter Musevski, Aliosa Kovacic, Primoz Petkovsek. Hard-drinking, chain-smoking Ludvik spends his nights smuggling illegal refugees in his van from Croatia, across Slovenia, and into Italy. The young and inexperienced Rudi is his new assistant. Together they cope with life in a rundown town, home to the only nuclear power plant in former Yugoslavia. 83 min. DVD 6337

Directed by Dusan Makavejev. Cast: Carole Laure, Pierre Clementi, Anna Prucnal, Sami Frey, Jane Mallet, John Vernon, Roy Callender, Otto Muehl, members of the Therapie-Komune, Vienna.
The intercut story of two women: a nearly-mute beauty queen who descends into withdrawal and madness, and another who captains a ship laden with candy and sugar, luring men and boys aboard for sex, death, and revolutionary talk. Special features: New video interviews with Makavejev and Balkan film scholar Dina Iordanova; actress Anna Prucnal sings a song from the film; booklet featuring essays by critic David Sterritt and Harvard professor and philosopher Stanley Cavell. 98 min. DVD 9882

Directed by Emir Kusturica. The story of Pheran, a life-loving young gypsy with telekinetic gifts. Lured by promises of wealth, he leaves his beloved grandmother and girlfriend to join the gang of Ahmed, a flamboyant criminal with a scam for all seasons. 136 min. 999:2983

Directed by Emir Kusturica. Cast: Cast: Miki Manojlovic, Lazar Ristovski, Mirjana Jokovic, Slavko Stimac. A tragicomedy about friendship and betrayal dealing with the conflicts of Yugoslav history. Marko and Blacky, two opportunistic buddies, attain riches and heroic praise dealing arms to resistance fighters in the midst of war. When things get too hot, they move into a cellar packed with refugees whom Marko encourages to manufacture the contraband. Meanwhile Marko conspires to leave Blacky in the cellar as he grows richer from the toils of those living underground. 167 min. DVD 3296; vhs 999:2981

Director, Lucien Pintilie. A doctor oversees an inhuman mental ward and in the face of sloth and indifference surrenders any reforming zeal. The doctor is reported to the authorities, is judged mad and is locked in Ward no. 6 with other inmates. Based on the novel of the same title by Anton Chekhov. 93 min. Video/C 1405

Director, Peter Kosminsky. Cast: Ioan Gruffudd, Branka Katic, Damian Lewis, Cal McAninch, Jodhi May. Based on the testimony of soldiers in the UN protection force in central Bosnia, this intensely moving drama tells the story of ordinary people in an extraordinary situation -- of friendship, bravery and frustration which is part and parcel of the changing nature of soldiering, and of the emotional impact it has on the lives of all those involved. PAL format. 170 min. 999:3097

When Father Was Away on Business (Otac na Sluzbenom Putu) (Yugoslavia, 1985)

Director, Emir Kusturica. Set in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia in the 1950's, this is the comic story of a family's efforts to get along when the head of the household is sent to a labor camp for fooling around with the voluptuous object of desire of a Communist Party Official. 144 min. DVD 4691; also vhs 999:1190

Directed by Vinko Bresan. Cast: Leon Lucev, Alma Prica, Mirjana Karanovic, Drazen Kuhn, Kresimir Mikic. The stories of the people in a small town in the Balkans confronting ethnic hatred and deep moral ambiguities, focusing on the various character's viewpoints and the complexities of war and humanity. 88 min. DVD 6354

Director, Arsen A. Ostojic. Cast: Dino Dvornik, Mladen Vulic, Coolio.
On New Year's Eve, while crowds gather in the ancient city square for a rock concert, a young couple plotting a rendezvous, an addict desperate for a fix, a widow and her grieving child, and three drunken American sailors become fatally intertwined. 100 min. DVD X3336

Director, Dusan Makavejev. WR is a unique blend of fact and fiction. It combines the story of the sexual encounter between the beautiful, liberated Milena and a figure-skating champion with an exploration of the life and theories of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. 80 min. DVD 9334; vhs 999:866